OREANDA-NEWS. Basel Aero, part of Russia's largest diversified industrial group Basic Element, announces that International Olympic Committee delegation, headed by IOC president Thomas Bach, arrived at the Sochi International Airport on Friday.

IOC president arrived at the airport's sector C from Frankfurt. A regular Lufthansa-operated flight landed in Sochi at 16:33 local time.

Thomas Bach, who succeeded Jacques Rogge as IOC president on 10 September, 2013, arrived in Sochi a week before the opening ceremony of the 22nd Winter Olympic Games.

The main Olympic gateway also served 66 IOC delegates on Friday who arrived from Istanbul, Zurich, Frankfurt, Munich as well as from other cities with a transit in Moscow. Among the air carriers handled IOC members are Aeroflot, S7, Oreanair, Balkan Holidays Airlines, Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa.

The airport will handle no less than 52,000 passengers on peak days. During the upcoming week it will serve up to 25,000 people every day. It takes only 45 seconds to check-in an economy class passenger while waiting time for check-in does not exceed 15 minutes. The airport's handling capacity will increase from 2,500 to 3,800 passengers per hour during the Games what fully complies with the IOC requirements. In order to ensure the higher quality of services, the airport has doubled its staff with the personnel from other Russian airports, air carriers and cadets of aviation schools.

Leonid Sergeev, Basel Aero CEO, comments: “Just a week until the Olympics starts, the airport's passenger traffic is growing exponentially with the guests and participants of the Games arriving every day. Among the main client groups are national Olympic teams, members of IOC and NOCs, media and broadcasters. We are successfully handling growing volume of operations, and hopefully the airport's busiest day on February 6 will be equally successful.”