OREANDA-NEWS  Russian airlines are switching to a winter schedule: this season they are offering passengers more tickets than a year ago and opening new destinations.

The summer and winter schedules are the seasons defined by the International Air Transport Association (IATA, International Air Transport Association). Airlines switch to winter schedules on the last Sunday in October. It lasts until the last Saturday in March.

This year, the winter schedule starts on October 27. Carriers and relevant ministries prepare in advance. So, back in mid-October, the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Roman Starovoit held a meeting with the largest Russian airlines and airports, during which the industry confirmed its readiness to switch to the autumn-winter period. The minister reported that a stock of reagents of domestic production, de-icing liquid has been formed and snow removal equipment is ready.

Vladimir Poteshkin, Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation, reported at another meeting that Russian airlines in Russia are offering 29.9 million tickets for this winter period. This already exceeds the actual figure of last year.

The geography of flights of the largest Russian airline group Aeroflot, which in addition to the company of the same name includes Pobeda and Rossiya, has 260 destinations in the new schedule. This is 8% more than a year ago. Of these, more than 140 are domestic routes.

The group has 33 new routes for passengers. For Aeroflot itself, these are, for example, flights from Moscow (Sheremetyevo) to Cheboksary, Elista and Denpasar, from St. Petersburg to Almaty and Bangkok. Pobeda made, among other things, flights from Moscow (Vnukovo) to Astrakhan, Tashkent, Osh, as well as from Makhachkala to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Russia has added, in particular, flights from Krasnoyarsk to Omsk, Novosibirsk and Perm, from Vladivostok to Shanghai.

During this period, Siberia Airlines (S7) will fly to 126 destinations in 77 cities of Russia and the world. The carrier continues to develop routes from Moscow to other Russian cities. S7 operates flights from Domodedovo Airport to Sochi, Apatity, Gorno-Altaysk, Novokuznetsk, Minvody, Novosibirsk, Kaliningrad, Blagoveshchensk, Yakutsk, Chita, Kemerovo, etc.

S7 will have more international flights from the capital. For example, flights to Dubai will become daily with the start of the winter season.

Relative to last winter, Siberia increased its flight program from the airline's key hubs – Novosibirsk and Irkutsk.
Other Russian carriers have also announced an increase in the number of domestic and international flights.