OREANDA-NEWS. On 17 March 2008  Utair announced 27.3% increase in passenger numbers in January - February 2008.

UTair carried 430,125 passengers in January-February 2008, which is 27.3 percent more than in the first two months of the previous year. A considerable increase was also seen in the airline’s other operating results over the reporting period. In particular, the company’s passenger traffic rose 29.7 percent to 630.985m passenger-kilometers . UTair’s airplanes logged 21,891 flight hours, up 32.8 percent from a year ago.

The company’s helicopters logged 7,479 flight hours, which is a 28.4-percent rise from the same period in 2007.

Helicopters carried 2,283 tonnes of cargo in January-February 2008, 1.4 times more than over the same two months of the previous year.

According to UTair’s business plan, the company’s airplanes and helicopters will spend 240,000 hours in the air in 2008. More than 4m passengers will be transported and nineteen new routes introduced. Helicopter operations will be conducted in eleven foreign countries as well as Russia.