Platov Airport Celebrates First Year of Operation
The Platov International Airport (a company of the Airports of Regions Holding) celebrates the first year of its operation. The new airport of Rostov-on-Don, built from scratch in the Don steppe, received the first scheduled passenger flight on December 7, 2017. A terminal with festival decorations welcomes Platov passengers today on the occasion of the first birthday of the airport. A photo exhibition of the brightest events in the first year of life of the new Rostov airport has been opened in the lobby of the public area, from official opening in December 2017 to meeting the three-millionth passenger in November 2018. Passengers can also leave greetings and wishes on the first floor of the terminal, posting stickers on a specially prepared board. These wishes will be read throughout the day from the control room in breaks between announcements of flights. Furthermore, a specially invited DJ will run the holiday broadcast in the airport all day long. Tags for hand baggage, designed specifically for the first birthday of the airport, are given to departing passengers, and holiday stickers, with the design thereof developed by Rostov artist Maxim Ilyinov, are posted on traveling trunks of arriving passengers.
Platov demonstrated significant growth of passenger traffic and expanded the route network over the year of operations. The Platov Airport serviced over 3.23 million passengers from December 7, 2017 to December 7, 2018, which is 20% above the like figure a year earlier. This is almost twice higher than the average growth level of passenger air transportation in the industry. 764 thousand passengers took advantage of the new Rostov airport services during the first year of its operations in international destinations (+20.2%). 2.47 million passengers were serviced on domestic flights (+20.2%).
“The first year of Platov Airport’s operations demonstrated that construction of an absolutely new airport was justified and able to give a major impetus to development of the air service in the region,” says Alexander Serov, Executive Director of the Platov Airport. “We have reached record-breaking figures of passenger traffic growth, boosted transfer carriage and successfully passed peak loads of the FIFA World Cup. All that will not be possible without the new comfortable airport and concerted efforts of the large team of our air harbor staff,” he notes.
To recap, the annual figure of the airport passenger traffic exceeded 3 million passengers on November 27 for the first time in the history of aviation of the Rostov Region. The record three-millionth passenger checked in for the flight to Samara by the Azimuth Airline, based in Platov. 20 new destinations for travels from Rostov-on-Don became available for passengers during the first year of operations of the Platov International Airport. Flights to Alanya, Batumi, Bologna, Djerba, Minsk and Dalaman were for the first time serviced on international lines. It has become possible to fly inside Russia to such cities as Astrakhan, Groznyy, Kazan, Kaluga, Mineralnye Vody, Nizhnekamsk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Stavropol, Chelyabinsk, Cherepovets, Elista, Tyumen, Voronezh, and Volgograd.
Launch of the new Platov airport terminal made possible to materially increase transfer traffic through Rostov-on-Don. 79.5 k people used the updated Rostov-on-Don airport as a transfer hub from January to November of this year, which is 85% above the figure in 2017. The transfer passenger traffic in the Platov Airport was largely formed on account of passengers traveling from Russian cities to Georgia, Armenia and backward.
The Platov International Airport serviced 257.8 k passengers in time of the FIFA World Cup in 2018 during the period of matches in Rostov-on-Don, which is 51% above the like period in the last year. Domestic passenger traffic was 187.8 k passengers (+56%) and international traffic amounted to 70 k passengers (+39%). The all-time high daily passenger traffic was updated several times and recorded as a result on June 23. The Platov Airport serviced 19.7 k individuals and 212 flights on the day of the match between teams of Mexico and the Republic of Korea, which is 2 times above the standard load in summer season.
To recap, the new Rostov-on-Don international airport construction project was implemented within the framework of the public private partnership, with involvement of the Government of the Russian Federation, the Government of the Rostov Region and the Airport of Regions Management Company. The Platov International Airport has become the largest infrastructural project of the Rostov Region. The airport terminal was built in the Aksaisky District, 4 km northward of the Grushevskaya Village.
07.12.2018