Airports of Regions’ Traffic Sinks 39% in 2020

The passenger traffic of the airports managed by Airports of Regions MC sank by 39% in 2020 to 9.7m people. The deterioration of performance was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions on travels – in particular, the ban on international flights for all national airports, imposed on 27 March 2020. By the end of 2020 the only two airports managed by the Airports of Regions holding that were granted the permission to provide services for international flights were Platov (Rostov-on-Don) and Kurumoch (Samara).

A significant reduction of passenger traffic was recorded at Koltsovo airport (Yekaterinburg) where 3.55m people received services in 2020, down 44% year-on-year. On international routes the dive was a lot deeper – 84% (services provided for 333,000 travelers); on domestic routes the traffic sagged by 25% (services provided for 3.2m people). Strigino airport (Nizhny Novgorod) showed the deepest dive by the number of passengers who used its services in 2020 – overall 589,000 travelers, down 48% year-on-year. On international routes the traffic sank 11 times to 29,000 people, whereas on domestic routes it went down by 30% to 559,000 passengers.

The traffic at Platov airport (Rostov-on-Don) dropped by 32% to 2.1m passengers. On international routes the traffic plummeted by 38% (services provided for 420,000 people), on inland routes – by 30% (services provided for 1.7m passengers).

Kurumoch airport (Samara) lost 44% of its traffic in the wake of the pandemic, having provided its services for 1.7m passengers in 2020. On international routes the traffic sagged by 84% with 128,000 passengers receiving the airport’s services; on domestic routes the reduction stood at 30% with 1.6m people serviced.  

Elizovo airport (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky) lost 27% of the passenger traffic last year, having provided its services for 554,000 people. The number of travelers flying to domestic destinations dropped by 26% to 551,000 people; on international routes the traffic plummeted by 79% to 3,600 people. The airport of Novy Urengoy lost 28% of the traffic, having provided its services for 701,000 people in 2020. Gagarin airport (Saratov) provided its services for 534,500 people in 2020, including 533,400 passengers flying to domestic destinations and 1,100 travelers flying abroad.