Russia’s largest airline group, Aeroflot, on Monday announced a 20.4% drop in the number of passengers it carried in March compared to the same month in 2021, a drop mainly due to Western sanctions due to the Russian military invasion of Ukraine from 24 February.
In March 2022, a total of 2.20 million passengers were transported by flights of Aeroflot or its subsidiaries Rossiya and Pobeda, compared to 2.76 million in March 2021.
The reduction reaches 50% on international flights: 189,400 people were transported, compared to 379,200 a year earlier. On domestic flights, the shrinkage was of the order of 15%.
The parent company Aeroflot, focused on international routes, is suffering the heaviest blow, with the drop of its passengers reaching 32.1%.
The figures came as the first results of the Aeroflot Group were released after the start of military intervention in Ukraine in late February, which sparked a series of Western economic sanctions.
In late February, the European Union in particular imposed sanctions on the Russian aeronautical industry, closed its airspace to Russian aircraft and banned the supply of components and spare parts to Russian airlines.
Concerned that they would see their aircraft, many of which they sublet from European companies, being seized while operating abroad, Russian airlines have drastically curtailed international flights.
In early March, the Aeroflot group announced that it was suspending its international flights, citing new “conditions that prevent them from operating”. Then some started again, to a few countries, such as Iran, Sri Lanka, Armenia, Azerbaijan.
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