Published: 4/24/1998

Last year Aeroflot-Russian International Airlines (ARIA) maintained regular services to 93 countries, making landings at 153 airports, including eleven in Russia. In all, its aircraft logged 1.86bn km-tonnes, 14.6bn km-passengers. The airline carried 3.904m passengers and 922,000tonnes of cargo and mail. In principle, the major traffic figures remained at the level of the previous year: the traffic rose only by 2.4% with a decrease in the average distance flown by 2.4%. For Aeroflot managers however, the year was not quite as it might have seemed: in the first six months they registered a monthly decline (to the respective level of 1996) from 2% to 15%. The situation improved in the second half of the year, when the monthly rise stood at 20-25%, as a result of opening new routes and increasing frequencies on existing lines. Although Aeroflot has been expanding its intra-Russia network over the last three years, the bulk of work in 1997 was made in the international flights sector. In comparison with 1996, its share decreased from 98% to 94%. This was despite a threefold rise in the number of passengers carried within Russia, up 137,000 on the 1996 level). Cargo flights abroad rose by 5.1% (+4.1 tonnes), while those inside Russia decreased by 22% (-2.0 tonnes). The share of charter passenger flights in 1997, stood at 8.4% of all passengers carried, which marked a 1.6% increase over 1996. The seat-load factor remained the same at 60.8%. At the same time, there were some changes in seat-load factor between the operational types: more seats were occupied in Il-62Ms (+4.1%) and Il-86s (+3.5%), while Il-96-300s, A-310s and Tu-134As carried fewer passengers, -3.7%, -2% and -4% respectively. For the 767s and Tu-154s the change was minor (0.8% and +0.6% respectively). The commercial load factor increased by 1.8%, to 50.5%, despite a decline for the Il-96-300, A-310 and Tu134A, which was -2.6%, -1.4% and - 3.6% respectively. The modern types, the Il-96-300, A-310 and 767, were responsible for 41.7% of all passenger traffic, compared with 34.2% in 1996. As of 1 January 1997, Aeroflot owned 101 aircraft (six Il-96300, 22 Il-62M, 18 Il-86, 29 Tu-154B/M, 13 Tu-134A, 13 Il76T/TD) and hired 12 (two 767-300ER, eight A-310-308, one DC-10-30F and one Il-86GR). in addition, two A-310-324s were in joint use with Diamond-Sakha. During the year the company took on operational lease three Tu-154s and withdrew one Il-62M and one Tu-134A. The Il-86GR was laid off in accordance with the hiring contract. Last year Aeroflot made more intensive usage of its fleet than in 1996. The average rise in the number of flight hours flown by each aircraft rose by 444 for the Il-96-300, 220 for A-310, 150 for 767 and 143 for Tu-134A. The most frequently flown types were the 767 (13.5 hours daily), A-310 (11.2), DC-10 (7.9) and Il-96-300 (7.3).(VK) (AL498.5)  

Article ID: 145