OREANDA-NEWS. November 25, 2010. From the start of 2010 Vnukovo International has seen consistent growth across the entire range of its passenger and cargo operations resulting in improved year-to-date figures against the same period of last year. The Airport's passenger numbers are up 24 percent, with over 125 thousand flights having been handled over the period under review, and constituting a 15,2 improvement against last year's same period.

October 25 saw the welcoming at Vnukovo of the Airport's eight-millionth passenger. Last time the Airport did record such passenger numbers was back in 1991, followed shortly by a precipitous slump in air travel demand in Russia. By press time, a total of 8 million 350 thousand air travels have used the Airport's services this year.

In October 2010 the Airport welcomed 827 thousand passengers, a 18,5 percent improvement against October 2009. The Airport's international services have been showing the highest growth rate with 58 percent more air travelers welcomed compared with the previous year. Dushanbe, Yerevan, Thessaloniki, Gyandzha, Kharkov, and Tashkent have been topping the Airport's list of most popular destinations. Likewise, Vnukovo's route network offering has grown to include the new destinations of Hannover, Riga, Kiev, Zaporozhye, Sebastopol, and Lankaran. The resulting international scheduled passenger numbers in October 2010 stood at 272 thousand. The domestic services accounted for 555 thousand passengers welcomed, resulting in a 5,6 percent improvement against last year's same period. More than 13 thousand flights have been handled at the Airport over this year's October.

The positive growth dynamics has been brought about by - among other factors - the addition of new destinations, the increased number and frequencies of scheduled and charter services alike, as well as by Vnukovo's new partnerships with a number of airlines and airports.

One of the past month's more salient and socially significant events at the Airport was the inauguration of Air Berlin's program of lights on the Braunschweig-Moscow route. The flights featuring new unique destinations on both Vnukovo International's and Air Berlin's route networks are intended to operate as a corporate shuttle for Messrs. Volkswagen. The service will be a triple-weekly operation using the modern Embraer-190 regional twinjets as standard equipment on the route.

Vnukovo's particular focus has always been on developing its infrastructure and on improving customer service quality. Thus, with a view to eliminating any possible road traffic backups and overall congestion, a revised road traffic pattern on the Airport forecourt has been introduced. The new circular traffic pattern takes into account the recently-built horseshoe-shaped raised highway spanning the forecourt -as it runs along the mainline passenger terminals' facades - and providing a convenient passenger curbside pickup and drop-off area with special short-term parking spots (pockets) right in front of the Airport's all-new passenger Terminal A.

In addition to the existing two multilevel car parks, the construction of a third one comprising five levels and with spaces for 3500 cars has been envisaged in the Vnukovo Airport Forecourt Construction Plan approved by the Government of Moscow on October 19, 2010.