Published: 9/25/1998

On 18 September ARIA held a press briefing, during which the company's press-secretary Aleksandr Luchaninov said that Aeroflot will continue to fulfil its long-term strategy on widening the network of its inner-CIS routes. In August, the airline opened two new scheduled services, Moscow-Koshitse-Bratislava, and Moscow-Volgograd, and in early September it started flying a Berlin-Moscow-Samara service, said Luchaninov, adding that this immediately followed Transaero's closure of its Moscow-Samara flights. Later, on 16 September, Aeroflot began regular services to Donetsk. In the near future the company is to open scheduled services to Tchelyabinsk, Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk, while from the winter timetable, flights will be started from Moscow to Gyandzha. Luchaninov said that despite the financial and political crisis in the country, Aeroflot managed to increase its passenger traffic in August by 13% over the same period of the last year. Since the beginning of the crisis, the company has kept the rouble/dollar conversion ratio (in operations on air ticket sales for inner-Russian flights) at 6.26, in an effort to prevent a drop in domestic traffic volumes. "We have a very competent team of market specialists, who believe this is the right way to do business", Luchaninov commented. Meantime, the rouble/dollar conversion ratio in operations on air ticket sales for international flights has been following the situation on the open market. As of 18 September, it was 15, Luchaninov said. Although the crisis is expected to produce a negative effect on the company's activities, Luchaninov believes that Aeroflot annual traffic will, most certainly, exceed the four million mark this year. "We have already carried three million this year, including one million within the CIS", he said. (AL998.3) (VK)  

Article ID: 281