Published: 11/21/1997

Transaero has revealed some statistics for this year. In all, 1,004,112 passengers were carried in the first seven months, which is 109% of the figure for the same period of 1996. Cargo traffic rose by 33%, up to 4,623 tonnes. Aleksandr Pleshakov, chairman of the company's council of directors, says that the share of scheduled flights stood at 90%. The volume of sales in the first eight months was $209m (some 56% higher than in 1996), with operational expenses being $167m (24.6% higher). Operational profit is reported to be $37.5m. Pleshakov expects to have operational profit of $56-58m for the whole of 1997. Transaero has changed its 5-year old slogan "Reliability, Safety and Comfort" to "Regularity, Safety, Accessibility and Comfort". The company is now trying to set the lowest air fares in Russia, taking advantage of low fuel consumption of its largely-US airliners. The new policy is to earn money on high load factors with simultaneous decrease in operational expenses. In the first half of 1997, the company managed to increase the passenger-load factor by 2% and regularity of flights from 69% to 83%. To achieve higher profitability, Transaero is taking on lease two B-737-400s in December. The appropriate contract has recently been signed with German's Bavaria. Moreover, the operator has reached agreement with an IFLC lessor from the US on several B-767-300ERs, which would replace the DC-10-30 currently in use. By the end of the year Transaero is going to sign a contract with Boeing on the delivery of four Boeing-737-300 and two B-757 airliners in 2,000. These will be followed by four B-737-700, two B-757 and two B-767 aircraft in 2001. In June this year, Transaero signed a letter of intent for six Il-96Ms in production at VASO factory in Voronezh. The deliveries are tentatively planned to begin in 2001 with a rate of two airframes a year. However, Pleshakov says, the firm order for the Il-96M will be signed only after the plane has proved successful in service with Aeroflot. The final decision should be taken by the end of 1999. The company is fully intending to develop its Transaero-Express branch working in the sector of regional flights. With one Tu-134VIP in its inventory, Transaero-Express looks for low-cost highly-profitable commuters, choosing between the Il-114 and An-140. The growing fleet will allow Transaero to increase frequencies of flights to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Ekaterinburg, Karaganda, Akmola, Alma-Ata, Berlin, Tel Aviv and Los-Angeles. Newly-open routes lead to New Urengoi and Strasbourg. Next year Transaero plans to open flights to Samara, Volgograd, Rostov-upon-Don, Khabarovsk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Ufa, Surgut and Khanty-Mansiysk. Partly, these will be flown from Domodedovo airport of Moscow. (AL1197.6) (VK)

Article ID: 89