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Aviation Forecasts

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How air travel is evolving postpandemic

In this episode of The McKinsey Podcas t , Diane Brady speaks with partners Alex Dichter and Robin Riedel about the outlook for airlines and other industry players. An edited version of their conversation follows.

Diane Brady: Hello, and welcome to The McKinsey Podcas t . I’m Diane Brady. During the COVID-19 pandemic, few industries have been harder hit than airlines. As we recover, few will have more challenges getting back to normal. Joining me are two McKinsey partners who have been working on these issues for years. Alex Dichter is a senior partner in London who leads McKinsey’s Travel, Logistics & Infrastructure Practice. Robin Riedel is a partner in McKinsey’s Aerospace & Defense Practice who leads the advanced-air-mobility group for the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility out of San Francisco.

Alex, let’s start with you. Give us some sense of the current state of air travel.

Alex Dichter: Most of the world’s travel went to almost nothing in April and May [2020]. At one point, we were running at about minus 95 percent, if we compared traffic in 2020 to 2019 during the same period. Obviously, some parts of the world have gone back to some degree of normalcy. If we were to look at air travel in mainland China, for instance, where the virus has been well contained, domestic travel is near normal. New Zealand and Australia, at least internally, have gone back to something that starts to look and feel like normal, and the US has some domestic traffic.

For virtually every other part of the world, what’s stopping international travel, and to some extent domestic travel, is the wide array of restrictions associated with travel. Everybody wants to go on vacation. Everybody wants to see their friends and family. But if you have to get tested and quarantine on the way back, it starts to look like a daunting task. That has kept international travel to a near minimum. In fact, one of the only reasons that we see a reasonable number of long-haul flights still in place is that cargo demand is relatively strong.

An industry hit hard by COVID-19

Diane Brady: This is an industry that has felt vulnerable for years, even before this degree of disruption. What is the economic fallout?

Robin Riedel: To put it into numbers, and just for last year, 2020, the estimated impact on airlines is about a $370 billion revenue loss versus 2019.

It’s a massive hole that the industry’s in, and that’s just the airlines. You also have the supply chain and other sectors or subsectors. You add all of that together and you’re getting close to half a trillion dollars of losses across the airline or air-travel industries. That loss has impacted the companies, on the one hand, but also the employees, on the other. We’ve seen pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, and all kinds of workers lose their jobs over this crisis, and with an unclear path to come back.

The question of how many airlines will survive, to a large degree, will depend on some of the government support that is out there, what the recovery really will look like, and whether we will see a significant jump back to pre-COVID-19 levels of this year, or whether it will take until ’22, ’23, or even ’24 before we’ll see travelers and revenue come back.

Looking ahead to recovery

Diane Brady: Alex, can you give us some sense of what normalcy will look like?

Alex Dichter: Predicting the future is always a dangerous game. There are two fundamental axes here. One is the degree to which the world recovers from the economic fallout associated with COVID-19, and two is the speed at which we put the virus functionally behind us.

It’s clear that the virus is lasting much longer than we all hoped it would back in March or April of last year. It’s equally clear that the speed at which vaccines have been developed has surprised a lot of people.

We’re starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel, even if the remaining bit of the tunnel is still long. While the economic fallout has no doubt been significant, we’ve not seen a crash in global markets, for example, and asset prices have continued to hold up.

Corporate balance sheets are also relatively strong, so there’s good news amid the bad. Our more pessimistic scenario would have demand not recovering until 2024. If you were to double-click on that, you’d see a much faster recovery for leisure traffic than you would see for business traffic.

Businesses, even if they’re financially healthy, have all learned that technologies like Teams and Zoom and Webex are working relatively well and can replace some of the travel that they used to do. Technologies will likely replace that travel in the future.

The more optimistic scenario might have us back to normal, or at least back to 2019 volumes, by the end of 2022. The one caveat I would make is that in this industry, you can’t have more passengers than you have seats. This is an industry where we make relatively important decisions about capacity with long lead times. You can’t snap your fingers and bring back planes that you’ve parked in the desert. To recall furloughed pilots, it takes time. Even if demand comes back sooner, it may be that we don’t see the volumes come back until well into 2023, simply because the industry isn’t yet prepared to accept those passengers.

This is an industry where we make relatively important decisions about capacity with long lead times. You can’t snap your fingers and bring back planes that you’ve parked in the desert. Alex Dichter

How employees are coping

Diane Brady: Robin, you’re out there on the front lines, talking to executives, employees, and engineers. Can you give us a sense of just what people have been doing to cope and survive this?

Robin Riedel: It’s a really challenging time for the executives of these companies and for the employees. I’ve been heartened by many of the actions we’ve seen where companies really have stepped forward to try to protect jobs as much as they could.

Employees and their unions have leaned forward to find creative arrangements that will protect jobs, help the companies survive, and work much more hand in hand than they have in the past. There have been a number of deals that reduce flying hours for individual pilots, keeping the overall number of pilots at a higher level—or reduce certain compensation packages for the short term so that the financials work out in these difficult times. That has been heartening to see. At the same time, we’ve seen massive layoffs despite all of that.

In particular, on the pilot’s side, it’s a challenging situation. As a pilot, you need to remain certified and stay in the role to feel comfortable flying. Many pilots who have been laid off don’t really have an opportunity to go somewhere else to fly.

They’re probably going to spend a year or two or three not flying before they get recalled. By then, they might have switched into another industry. They might feel that they have really lost skills and need significant training to come back to flying. There’s a good chance that this will cause what we would consider to be a pilot shortage in a couple of years, simply because there are enough people leaving the industry as a result of all of this.

Leisure travel makes a comeback

Diane Brady: Alex, you mentioned the shift between the ratio of leisure to business. Airlines are constantly innovating on that front. I remember talking to somebody at a café once even about how they place the bathrooms, and how many bathrooms they have on different flights depending on how much beer people drink. How is this shifting the focus of the investments that these airlines are making, both now and in anticipation of a recovery?

Alex Dichter: There are a number of changes. On the investment front, it really depends on what kind of airline you are. Certainly, there are airlines whose hubs are in cities with enormous volumes of high-end business traffic: the banking sector, the consulting sector, the legal sector. These people historically have flown a lot, and they typically fly at the front end of the cabin. You would see airlines where the number of business-class seats could exceed the number of economy-class seats.

Many of those companies will struggle to fill those cabins in a post-COVID-19 world at first. We will see a shift in thinking about that. Over the past several years, one of the biggest growth segments that we’ve seen has been high-end leisure.

These are not necessarily very wealthy people, but people who see travel as the most important use of their disposable income and are willing to splurge for a better experience. If you looked across business-class cabins of many airlines over the past few years, you would’ve seen a number of people with loosened ties and their laptops out. But you’d also see couples clinking their champagne glasses and families and honeymooners and retirees. That will be a really important segment post-COVID-19. While a hundred business-class seats in some cases may be too much for that segment, 50 certainly isn’t.

The corporate market tends to pay very high prices, and they tend to book relatively late. It wouldn’t be unusual to look at a flight between London and New York a month out and see that the seat map is two-thirds empty, only to find it relatively full on the day of departure.

Leisure passengers tend to book earlier. Historically, airlines have held back on the number of leisure passengers that they would allow into those seats, waiting for corporate travelers to show up. We may see a shift in that dynamic, where we allow more seats to be sold earlier, perhaps at lower prices.

With that might come a shift toward point-to-point traffic, people who are actually going between London and New York versus people who are connecting through London from another market. All of that will likely result in lower average revenues, but it doesn’t have to result in dramatically lower average revenues.

Pricing in a world without precedent

Diane Brady: Robin, I’ve been looking at seat sales to Miami from New York, for example, for $60 round trip. It does feel like it’s going to be hard to wean people off of some of these extremely low fares that we’ve become addicted to in the past few years, even prior to the pandemic. What do you see there in terms of pricing power?

Robin Riedel: On the pricing side, the challenge we’re having is that the systems that manage the pricing, revenue-management systems, and pricing systems, in many cases, rely on past information and past data. However, past information is not that helpful right now to figure out what passengers really want or what people are willing to pay.

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What we’re finding with our clients is that customers are much less elastic than they were before. Before, you could throw out a very low fare and people would flock to it. Right now, it’s not necessarily the fare that makes people travel or hold them back, but it’s the fear of getting infected or the fear of being away from home and the door shutting on them. Pricing is a very challenging topic right now where there’s very little precedence we can rely on.

That being said, airlines are making some progress in using what we would call nontraditional data sources and really trying to understand what drives willingness to pay. What are customers really looking for and willing to pay for in this new scenario? Airlines are looking at search trends, looking at customer sentiments, and looking at how people search across a website.

All of those kinds of things are starting to flow into the revenue-management systems and will hopefully help us manage prices back up to a more sustainable level, instead of lowering them and lowering them, trying to stimulate traffic that is really not that possible right now.

‘Working around the clock’ on sustainability

Diane Brady: Alex, I know you’ve done a lot of work with McKinsey regarding sustainability. COVID-19 has almost distracted us from what a terrible year 2020 was. I think it was the hottest year on record.

The airline industry has been front and center, both as an emitter of greenhouse-gas emissions and as an innovator on that front. Has COVID-19 shifted the focus of the industry on this issue?

Alex Dichter: Yes and no. I don’t know a single CEO who believes that sustainability is not coming back to the agenda as a critical topic. It is something that our corporate clients are demanding, and our corporate clients are demanding it because their employees and their customers are demanding it of them.

The good news is that those who are working on technology innovation—the development of sustainable aviation fuels, the use of hydrogen, electrification, and such—have been working around the clock and haven’t taken any time off.

Robin Riedel: There’s almost not a week right now where we’re not meeting with senior executives in the industry talking about sustainability. I’m both surprised and excited about the fact that this is happening, and that COVID-19 has not made this a second-order item. It’s still on the top of the agenda for many of the industry executives.

We see airlines all over the world wondering what to do. Some are working with offsets, and some are working by buying sustainable aviation fuel and trying to spur that industry. Some are investing in future technology for propulsion, whether it’s electric or hydrogen combustion or similar technologies. We’re seeing an influx of investment in that sector.

The promise of personalized air travel

Diane Brady: There was so much excitement around personalized air travel before the pandemic. Are those conversations taking a backseat to recovery? Or are we still seeing the investments in AI [artificial intelligence] and some of the other areas that might advance air travel beyond where we are today?

Robin Riedel: We’ll have to separate these future models, which are a shorter distance. Some people would refer to them as the equivalent of flying cars. These are smaller aircraft that fly, let’s say, up to 300 or 500 miles.

That is a new industry. It’s driven by a number of major trends, one being electrification and battery density. We’re getting to a point when it becomes technically feasible to have vehicles that operate that way. There’s also the drive for more sustainability.

The advance of AI makes some of this more effective. Last, but not least, is the interest of the customer to look at mobility as a service. Customers no longer just want to own a car and drive everywhere, but to hail a rideshare or look at sharing different modes.

When taken together, these trends create a fertile environment for a new mode of air transportation. We track more than 250 companies out there that are trying to play in the space. There are probably about a dozen or so of them that have significant funding by now.

We see a number of prototypes flying around. There are real expectations that in the next three to four years, we will see the first commercial models of these arrive in our cities. What form that will take, whether it’s helicopter-like from one rooftop to another, or a regional model that uses airports or airport-like infrastructure to go from one city to another, is to be seen. All of these have some promise. The devil is going to be in the execution and in the detail, but it surely is an exciting time for that space.

Diane Brady: How is that picture changing, especially in a part of the world where air travel is more back to normal?

Alex Dichter: Over the short and medium-term, we see some clear shifts.

We’re seeing a bias toward fewer flights and typically larger aircraft. Get as many people as you can on each one of your relatively few flights. The other reason for that is there is cargo demand. Larger aircraft do a better job of accommodating cargo than do smaller aircraft.

As we look forward, we’ll see airlines looking for more fuel-efficient aircraft. They will be looking for aircraft with more customer-friendly features like Wi-Fi and upgraded business-class cabins and bigger overhead bins.

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The interest in 100-seat aircraft will exist for some of the same reasons that were the case before COVID-19. Those aircraft are very useful at filling in city pairs that demand a lower cost structure than can be achieved with a 50- or 70-seat aircraft but don’t need 140 or 150 seats in order to achieve reasonable load factors.

The only thing that the industry expects to change is the amount of global investment in long-haul wide-body capacity. The reason for that is pre-COVID-19, many of the world’s airplanes that were flying on long-haul routes were losing money.

They were losing money because they were flown by relatively small airlines, in many cases backed by states, whose objectives went beyond profit. It was important to have these routes for political reasons: for pride, national sovereignty, and, in some cases, thoughtful links to economic development. Many governments are coming back around and saying, “Look. We’ve got a lot of priorities for a stretched state’s treasury. We’re not going to be able to keep funding loss-making operations forever.”

We’re seeing more and more governments asking their state-linked airlines to come up with plans that enable them to be financially sustainable. In many cases, that will mean smaller long-haul networks with fewer aircraft, which is good for carbon emissions, but probably not great for long-haul ticket prices.

Diane Brady: You both must be road warriors who also had your plans and travel put on hold. I’m personally very eager to get back on a plane again. Is that something that you welcome?

Robin Riedel: Yes. It’s a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, I’m glad to be home more right now. We have an infant in the house. It’s fantastic to be between meetings or at the end of the day and to be able to see my son. I appreciate not being on the road all the time anymore.

At the same time, I truly miss seeing my clients and my friends and my family. I just did the math the other day and this is the longest I’ve gone without seeing my parents in my life. That weighs heavily on me. There’s some positive and some negative in the lack of travel right now.

Diane Brady: What about for you, Alex?

Alex Dichter: First, prior to COVID-19 I was traveling more than virtually anyone that I’ve ever met. Typically, I would be in three continents in a week. I sleep well on planes. My pattern would be, I would get on a plane at night. I’d go to sleep. I’d wake up in another continent. I’d have a full day of meetings. I’d get on another plane that night, go to sleep, wake up on another continent, and end up back at home Thursday night or Friday morning. That allowed me to cover a lot of ground, see a lot of people, and do so in a way that was relatively sustainable from a lifestyle standpoint. Remember, I sleep well on planes, so I got as much sleep on the plane as I would typically get at home, and in some cases more. That has changed dramatically.

I have been on a few flights, particularly on the long haul. As an aside, some of the conversations I’ve had with crew have really been touching. I was on a flight between the US and London with eight passengers on board. The crew were practically in tears. It was their first flight in months. They understand very well that without passengers, they don’t have a future. I certainly hope for their sake that we see as much of the demand coming back as possible. Like Robin, I see some benefits to this.

I find interacting with my colleagues, whom I know well, to be much more efficient via these kinds of technologies. I don’t need to read their body language. I do want to see them on some cycle, but we can get a lot done very quickly.

The fact that nobody is traveling also means that calendars are much less rigid. If I want to get a client together with me for a discussion, I usually find an hour within a couple of days. In the old world, we’d often go back and forth for a couple of weeks trying to match up calendars and find a time when we could both be in the same spot on the globe when neither of us were someplace else.

That will be something that I don’t want to give up. At the same time, I am in this business because I want to help people. I like people, and I like getting to know my clients on a personal level. That is hard to do via Zoom.

I will do a lot less internal travel. I will replace some of that space with more client travel. The other thing that I’ve noted, and I’ve heard others say the same, is that in the future, I may need to see in person everyone in my personal network less frequently. Every two out of three interactions we can do remotely, I’m also meeting more people.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of years from now, you find me doing as much travel as I was doing before, but perhaps getting more out of it.

What industry leaders should know

Diane Brady: To those in the industry, any advice?

Robin Riedel: There are a couple of things worth keeping top of mind here. One, making sure to understand what are the relative risks and what does the latest research show about what is considered safe, or what is relatively safe, versus what is risky behavior? Even within travel, with the many studies that have been done, there’s enough evidence to show that air travel is relatively safe, and you can protect yourself with a few measures.

The second thing is to really think through what is essential travel; how do you define that, and guide your organization? The questions are going to be, “How do you roll back into travel? Do you just go back to where you were before, or do you adjust your travel policy and make some adjustments for things like safety, the environment, and how we’ve all learned to work with modern technology to avoid some of the travel?”

Diane Brady: Alex, anything you’d want to add?

Alex Dichter: Everyone needs to be prepared for a two-speed recovery or return over the course of the next 12 months. None of us really know how the summer is going to play out.

Expansion may prove to be complicated. When demand falls off, your reduction in capacity trails the falloff in demand, almost by definition. When there are fewer people on planes, you reduce flights. As you reduce flights, you reduce pilots.

When demand comes back very quickly, by definition, it will come back faster than you can bring capacity on board. At a time when airlines are going to be looking for as much goodwill as they can get from governments, labor unions, and their passengers, there’s a very high risk that we’ll see long queues in airports, lots of delays, and canceled flights. We’re simply not ready for the demand that appears, and I wish I had a better answer as to which one to prepare for. We need to be ready for both.

I would also leave airline executives with a longer-term thought. I hope that five years from now, everyone will still be talking about COVID-19 agility. What I mean by that is the speed at which we were able to get difficult things done during COVID-19.

Many airlines have moved to a world where what used to be eight-week, 12-week planning cycles are now done in one to two weeks.

My hope is that we retain some of these learnings, and maybe move to a world where we stop telling ourselves that every major innovation needs to, by definition, take several years to implement. We can start acting a little bit more like digital leaders, who tend to get things done quite quickly in a trial-and-error kind of way. I’m speaking more about the commercial side than I am about operations, where safety is paramount in our industry.

How COVID-19 has driven industry innovation

Diane Brady: Can you give me some sense of what’s on your radar and what you’re watching over the next year in general with regard to the industry?

Robin Riedel: There are probably four or five different themes here that are becoming important into 2021 beyond COVID-19. We need to get more serious and find better ways to abate some of the carbon we’re producing.

A second theme will be what we call the future of air mobility: the Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing [eVTOL] space or advanced-air-mobility space.

Another theme we haven’t talked about is cargo transportation by drone. We’re seeing a broad number of trials around the world where vaccinations or blood transfusions, or even medication and e-commerce packages, are transported by drones over the short range or over the long range for the last mile.

In the more traditional airlines, customer experience is going to be one to watch. As we come through COVID-19, smart airlines will take this as an opportunity to make things not just safer but also better. Whether that is self-service at the airport, some of the digital offerings they have, or onboard product, we’re seeing a number of changes coming that will make travel better in the future.

Diane Brady: Alex, what would be on your radar for people to watch over the next year?

Alex Dichter: I’m hopeful that we’ll see a couple of things. We’ll start to move from a world where the industry is focused on survival to a world where at least parts of the industry are focused on long-term success.

Let’s recognize that this is an industry that, for the better part of its 75-plus-year existence, has not made a dime. Part of that has to do with a very challenging structure: too many airlines, outdated regulations, very powerful supply chains.

I’m looking forward to some of the innovations that will naturally come out of this. Several of the changes that the industry has put in place during COVID-19, particularly moving from physical touchpoints to digital touchpoints, are hugely relevant. Digital technologies allow people a sense of control and transparency that I think everyone wants. As a passenger, I’m looking forward to some of those changes.

Diane Brady: So much fodder. If you’d like to hear more, please do go to McKinsey.com. We’ve been speaking with Alex Dichter and Robin Riedel. Alex and Robin, thank you so much for joining us.

Robin Riedel: Thank you for having us, Diane. It was a pleasure.

Alex Dichter: Thank you, Diane.

Diane Brady is an alumna of the New York office.

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By Angela Myers | January 27, 2023 Send Feedback

“Aviation has survived a pandemic-driven two thirds fall in demand. It is now ready to thrive.” (Photo: Avolon)

As many individuals make their New Year’s resolutions, commercial aviation companies have some predictions of their own. A report published by international aircraft leasing company Avolon set the stage for an optimistic 2023. The report predicted global air traffic will be back to pre-pandemic levels by June. It also highlighted opportunities to innovate the industry for economic gain and to make air travel more sustainable.

2022 was a recovery for airlines after the pandemic. There was a 70% increase in commercial air travel last year, primarily driven by increased passenger demand in North America and Europe. This increased demand made the airline industry profitable again, after 180 billion was lost in the airline sector in 2020 and 2021.

“Aviation demonstrated its resilience in 2022 as it rose above the crisis. 2023 starts off in a high-speed climb as the industry returns to ‘flight level,’ en route to profitability and growth again.” (Photo: Avolon)

Interestingly, airlines’ financial recovery progressed further than their capacity recovery last year. Air traffic was 25% lower than in 2019, but revenues were only 13% lower. The report indicated that airlines flexed their financial power since passenger demand was larger than available seats on flights.

“Boeing’s rebuild progressed in 2022 with increasingly steady 737 deliveries and a return to delivering the 787 after nineteen months tackling production quality issues,” the report states. “Airbus is facing its own challenges certifying the A321XLR but its commercial aircraft portfolio is well positioned, with four popular families delivering today and the A350F in development.”

Looking ahead to 2023, Avolon expects passenger demand to grow even more. With China’s recent reopening, passenger air travel will continue to increase in 2023, with the growth concentrated in Asia. It’s predicted that for every two new airline seats of airline capacity added, one will be added in Asia.

The report is unclear about if airlines will try to increase available seats to meet that capacity or simply raise their prices, though it does indicate there are opportunities for lessors, who now make up 53% of the commercial market, to lease more aircrafts to major airlines.

“Aerospace’s innovation cycle is facing the reality of a highly regulated industry. While almost 700 electric aircraft projects have been launched, only a small number are on a pathway to deliver a commercial product to customers.” (Photo: Avolon)

Finally, the report calls for airlines to double down on their sustainability commitments in 2023 and beyond. While sustainable airfare production tripled in 2022, it’s only at 1% of the target level by 2030. To reach the 2030 target, a $250 billion investment is needed over the next year.

The airline industry isn’t as smooth flying as it was in 2019 yet, but numbers are on track to hit pre-pandemic levels later this year. The increased passenger demand—combined with opportunities to innovate air travel to be more sustainable—could lead to a stronger recovery for both the industry and the climate.

Check out the full report from Avolon here >>

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Global Air Travel Is Approaching Cruising Altitude

As international travel was brought to an abrupt halt in 2020 at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the aviation industry suffered “the worst year in history for air travel demand”. While 2021 was still mired by travel restrictions, turbulence gradually eased in 2022 as more and more passengers returned to the skies.

According to data from OAG , weekly seat capacity on commercial passenger airlines averaged 90.7 million so far this year, up from 61 million during the same period in 2020 but still some way below the 2019 level of 110.9 million. The gap is gradually closing, however, and global capacity exceeded 100 million for the first time since the pandemic hit for a couple of weeks this summer.

There are significant regional differences in how far passenger airlines have recovered from the Covid-19 shock. While capacity remains far below pre-pandemic levels in large parts of Asia, especially in terms of international flights, capacity in North America is very close to 2019 levels.

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This chart shows global scheduled seat capacity on commercial passenger aviation.

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Simple Flying

5 interesting air travel insights & trends that will define the industry in 2024.

The future of commercial air travel holds a multitude of developments and challenges,

• Higher airfares are expected, with a 17% increase from 2022 to 2023.
• Persistent disruptions due to supply chain issues and labor shortages impact flights.
• Low-cost and legacy airlines compete for passenger loyalty with differentiated offerings.

In recent years, commercial air travel has seen its fair share of turbulence, pun not intended. The global pandemic left the aviation industry wondering if commercial air travel would ever return to its former glory. Fortunately, almost four years later, the aviation industry is prospering like never before. Significant developments are happening regarding passenger growth, fleet modernization, sustainable infrastructures, etc.

The developments also come with challenges that the aviation industry has to face and effectively address continuously. Simple Flying compiled a list of air travel insights and trends that will define commercial air travel soon, as highlighted in the OAG Aviation Market Analysis Blog .

1 Higher airfares

Airfares began to rise in 2022.

The NerdWallet Travel Price Index suggests that travel prices returned from a sharp decline to above pre-pandemic levels between May 2020 and December 2021. As worldwide air travel restrictions began to ease, airfares increased as much as 17% compared to 2019. While there were a few declines during off-peak months, travel prices were rising overall. The last 12 months have seen slower increases in airfare, with an annual rise of 3.1%.

Why Airfares Are Likely To Stay Expensive For Some Time

The continuation of this status quo is expected in the coming months. As usual, off-peak seasons may provide some relief with a decrement in airfares. Travelers must book early to get cheaper fares and look for new routes to influence fare dynamics in the coming months. Legacy carriers like United Airlines are opening new transatlantic routes, adding capacity and increasing competition.

2 Persistent disruptions

Supply chain issues and labor shortages.

• Pratt & Whitney GTF engine
• Boeing 737 MAX 9
• Air Traffic Controller (ATC) shortages

The recent [temporary] grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX 9 following the Alaska Airlines incident has impacted several large and small airlines. Last year, Pratt & Whitney GTF engine issues were expected to affect up to 300 aircraft at any given time globally. Lufthansa, Wizzair, and Virgin Atlantic in Europe, Delta Air Lines in North America, and IngiGo in Asia have experienced significant route disruptions.

5 Common Flight Disruptions That Are Out Of An Airline's Control

The aviation industry is already dealing with supply chain issues and labor shortages. Other problems with manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus are delaying aircraft deliveries. Amid all these challenges, flight disruptions are inevitable in the near term. These disruptions may also impact airfares, with certain airlines and routes exert higher fares.

3 Business travel demand

The short-haul business sector continues to face challenges.

In the post-pandemic times, business travel has begun to normalize once again. However, for a variety of reasons, not all business sectors are seeing the same short-haul travel demand. Some businesses have found more effective methods of working and holding meetings in a hybrid fashion. Others have entirely switched to online and remote business meetings and conferences.

Norse Atlantic CEO: Business Travelers Are Definitely A Target

Some people and companies are faced with restrictions related to sustainability, especially those residing in European countries. France has ditched short-haul flights for train rides, affecting airline operations. Short-haul business travel may continue to lag in the coming months and years. While that may open up some opportunities for leisure travelers, prices may be more prone to fluctuation on some routes.

4 Innovations in Aviation

Technological and sustainability initiatives.

Airlines and their partners are working closely to improve the operational efficiency of flights and enhance customer experiences at all levels of their journey. Whether it is technologically advanced devices at airports or technologies to reduce air turbulence, technological innovations are aimed at benefitting the aviation industry.

FAA Launches Enhanced Training Program To Catalyze ATC Recruitment

More and more startups and established manufacturers are working on electric and hybrid-electric aircraft to achieve net-zero carbon emissions. As a combined goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, innovations in aviation are reaching the aviation industry. Both the operators and customers are expected to benefit from innovative solutions in every aspect of aviation.

5 Commercial market dominance

Legacy airlines versus low-cost carriers.

Both the low-cost carriers and legacy airlines compete to gain passenger loyalty. On one hand, low-cost and ultra-low-cost carriers offer cheap fares to attract customers to fly to and from tier-1 and tier-2 airports. Budget carriers generally make profits through ancillaries that are sold separately to customers.

Indian Passengers Likely To Face Increased Airfares In Festive Months

In recent years, some of the largest airports in the US have seen a boost in low-cost carrier operations.

From Southwest and Spirit to Frontier and Flair, low-cost options are increasing in North America. Many legacy carriers have established a basic economy model similar to budget carriers. As such, legacy carriers can maintain their competitive stance, particularly in smaller markets and regional airports.

What are your thoughts on the travel insights to look out for in 2024 and beyond? Share your views in the comments section.

Demand for air travel is soaring, but it seems to be a less popular choice for Americans

• North America was the only market where demand for air travel didn't increase by double digits.
• That's according to data from IATA comparing February to the same month in 2023.
• IATA chief Willie Walsh also warned politicians not to make flying more expensive with new taxes.

North America has lagged behind the rest of the world as demand for airline travel increased.

Globally there was a 21.5% increase in total demand in February compared with the same month last year, according to data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) .

The airline trade group measured demand in terms of revenue passenger kilometers (RPK), which is the number of paying travelers multiplied by the distance traveled.

International travel appeared to rise in popularity more than domestic flights . Demand was up more than a quarter compared to a 15% boost for domestic travel.

Since this February included a leap day, there might be an extra bump in comparing the data between years.

Related stories

However, North America was the only market not to record a double-digit rise in passenger demand.

According to IATA, Asia Pacific had the highest increase in RPK at 37.8%, followed by Africa at 22.5%.

But demand in North America, which accounts for about a quarter of the global airline market, only increased by 8.9%.

The sharper rises in the rest of the world could reflect an ongoing recovery from the pandemic, which happened faster in the US in particular.

"There is good reason to be optimistic about the industry's prospects in 2024," said Willie Walsh, the IATA director-general.

As well as increased demand, he cited more investment in green technologies to help reduce the industry's climate impact .

Walsh also warned politicians to "resist the temptation of cash grabs with new taxes that could destabilize this positive trajectory and make travel more expensive."

He added: "In particular, Europe is a worry as it seems determined to lock in its sluggish economic recovery with uncompetitive tax proposals."

Watch: Why Hooters Air, Pan Am, and the Concorde all disappeared from the skies

• Main content

Air travel demand surges by 22%, says IATA

T he global passenger demand for air travel surged by 21.5 per cent in February, up from 16.6 per cent in January. This was revealed in the International Air Transport Association February 2024 report. The report stated that accompanying the surge in demand was a rise in capacity, measured in available seat kilometres, which grew by

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Banned From Russian Airspace, U.S. Airlines Look to Restrict Competitors

Because of the war in Ukraine, U.S. carriers have to take the long way on flights to and from Asia, giving an advantage to foreign rivals flying the same routes.

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By Kate Kelly and Mark Walker

WASHINGTON — Unable to fly through Russian airspace because of the war in Ukraine, U.S. airlines are stepping up a lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill and at the White House to address what they say is a growing problem: They are losing business to foreign competitors who can take passengers between the United States and Asia faster and more cheaply.

Effectively banned from the polar routes that save time and fuel between the United States and an array of destinations on the other side of the world, U.S. carriers say they are being forced into an aeronautical version of Twister to get passengers where they want to go without taking undue risks.

They have altered trans-Pacific flight plans to ensure they would have somewhere to land in an emergency, reduced passenger and cargo loads to hold down costs as they fly longer distances, and put on hold more than a dozen planned new routes to Mumbai, Tokyo, Seoul and other cities.

On its route from New Delhi to New York City, American Airlines has been forced to stop flights in Bangor, Maine — an hour and a half short of the mark — on 19 occasions, a person familiar with the recent history said. Those stops, which were typically caused by unfavorable winds or weather that depleted the jet fuel supply and ran out the flight crew’s duty hours, delayed passengers and forced a swap-out of 14 pilots and flight attendants.

Those flights were already operating with dozens of the seats deliberately left unfilled, the person added, because less weight on board was required to make the fuel last as long as possible.

Yet many foreign airlines are not banned from flying over Russia, U.S. airlines and their lobbyists say — and are winning more passengers on routes to and from the United States as a result. Continued access to the shorter and more fuel-efficient routes that Russian airspace provides is giving carriers like Air India, Emirates and China Eastern Airlines an unfair advantage, the industry lobbying group Airlines for America said in a recent presentation on Capitol Hill.

Airlines for America estimated the lost annual market share of U.S. carriers at a collective $2 billion per year.

“Foreign airlines using Russian airspace on flights to and from the U.S. are gaining a significant competitive advantage over U.S. carriers in major markets, including China and India,” the presentation, dated February, said. “This situation is directly to the benefit of foreign airlines and at the expense of the United States as a whole, with fewer connections to key markets, fewer high paying airline jobs” and a dent in the overall economy.

U.S. airlines for years had access to Russian airspace through a series of agreements with Moscow. In exchange for that access, they — and other foreign airlines — paid fees to the Russian government for air traffic control support that amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars per year, according to an airline official and an industry advocate.

But after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year prompted government officials in the United States, Britain, Canada and Europe to ban Russian aircraft from flying over their airspace, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia immediately prohibited the United States and other supporters of Ukraine, including Canada and much of Europe, from flying through his skies.

Now airlines are pressing the White House and Congress to fix the problem by subjecting foreign carriers from nations not already banned from Russian airspace to the same restrictions applied to U.S. airlines, effectively forcing them to fly the same routes as their American competitors.

The Biden administration should “take action to ensure that foreign carriers overflying Russia do not depart, land or transit through U.S. airports,” said Marli Collier, an Airlines for America spokeswoman.

The proposal appears to have gained traction with the Transportation Department, which recently drafted an order that would ban Chinese carriers that fly passengers to the United States from flying through Russian airspace, according to three people who were briefed on the order. The order was presented to a group of Biden administration officials, including members of the national security team, on Monday, two of those people said, and has been under consideration this week along with other proposed policy measures.

Transportation Department officials declined to comment. But national security officials are mindful of the potential diplomatic consequences of steps aimed at a longtime ally like India, or of adding further tension to the already strained relationship with China.

A spokesperson at the State Department, which is involved in an interagency government review of the airspace issues, said the department was aware of the concerns and regards the safety of U.S. citizens on foreign soil as a top priority.

“It’s just unfortunate for our air carriers that this has been a collateral issue,” said Manisha Singh, a former assistant secretary for the bureau of economic and business affairs at the State Department who now runs a consulting firm in Washington. “I think we should do anything we can,” she added, noting that the United States should “be careful” before taking steps that might offend foreign countries and affect U.S. tourism and commerce as a result.

Representatives for Delta, American, and United Airlines, the domestic carriers most involved in the lobbying effort, referred questions to Airlines for America, which praised a recent letter by Senate Foreign Relations Committee members to Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg echoing the group’s talking points.

“When foreign airlines overfly Russian territory, even if they do not expect to land on Russian soil, they run the risk of unplanned diversions in Russia for safety, medical, mechanical or more nefarious reasons,” wrote Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, the panel’s chairman, and Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, its senior Republican. The State and Transportation Departments have not yet responded to the letter, according to someone who has been briefed on the exchange.

Representatives for Air India declined to comment, and representatives for Emirates and China Eastern did not respond to requests for comment.

Arjun Garg, a former chief counsel and acting deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, said the Biden administration has the legal authority to remedy the complaints from U.S. carriers.

Mr. Garg said both the safety concerns the airlines have flagged and the way in which the current regulations have disadvantaged them are serious dilemmas.

“The foreign air carriers get the benefit of shorter flight times, lower costs, less fuel consumption, all those kinds of advantages that are shut off for U.S. carriers by order of the U.S. government,” Mr. Garg said.

At a time when U.S. fliers are already fed up with fundamental issues like cramped seats, flight cancellations and a cascade of service fees, access to Russian airspace may not be the most pressing worry. Depending on winds, air traffic and other factors on any given day, on a 14-hour flight, avoiding Russian airspace can mean less than an hour of extra flying time in some cases. But it can also mean more than two hours.

But the cost differential is notable. As of Wednesday, the outbound leg of an April round-trip journey from New York’s Kennedy Airport to New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Airport cost about $1,500 and was estimated at 13 hours and 40 minutes on Air India, according to Travelocity. The most comparable flight on a U.S. carrier: a $1,740 American Airlines trip with estimated flying time of 14 hours and 55 minutes.

But Airlines for America and the major carriers it represents are also highlighting security concerns for Americans who fly over Russia, even on foreign airlines. And history suggests there is cause for anxiety.

In 2014, a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down over Ukraine , killing 298 people. A Dutch court later convicted, in absentia, two Russian separatists and a pro-Russia Ukrainian with murder.

In 2021, a Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was diverted to Belarus , a close Kremlin ally, after officials in that country alerted air traffic controllers to a supposed bomb threat on the plane. Their true purpose, U.S. prosecutors said , was to arrest a dissident journalist who was a passenger by inventing a false safety issue. (The journalist, Roman Protasevich, was recently put on trial in Belarus, and the officials who the Justice Department says organized the diversion have been indicted in the United States and charged with conspiracy to commit airline piracy.)

Last year, the American basketball star Brittney Griner was detained at an airport near Moscow and later sentenced to nine years in a penal colony for carrying vape cartridges of hashish oil in her luggage. She was freed in December .

There are also operational challenges stemming from the longer routes being flown by U.S. carriers.

Delta Air Lines has redrawn trans-Pacific flight maps repeatedly to comply with both U.S. regulations and the Russian overflight ban, according to internal documents and two people familiar with the changes.

F.A.A. rules require that for long flights, commercial planes must always be within 180 minutes of a suitable airport in case an emergency landing is needed (with certain aircraft, which Delta flies, it can stretch to 207 minutes).

But without access to Russia as an emergency stop, Delta’s Detroit-to-Shanghai flights are now being forced to fly near obscure Pacific landmasses like Shemya Island southwest of Alaska. And if the tiny Shemya airport is too full to handle an emergency landing, Delta pilots must divert to an even farther-flung airport like the one on Midway Atoll in the middle of the Pacific, these people said — adding up to an hour and 40 minutes and more than 3,000 gallons of fuel to the journey when the closer stops are not available.

“You can sometimes think of it as a little bit of an obstacle course,” said Jim Higgins, an aviation professor at the University of North Dakota who flew as a commercial pilot for seven years. Federal regulation around emergency landings, while well-intentioned, he added, “does increase the operational complexity.”

Hari Kumar contributed reporting from New Delhi, and Keith Bradsher from Beijing. Li You contributed research.

Kate Kelly covers money, influence, and policy as a correspondent in the Washington bureau of the Times. Before that, she spent twenty years covering Wall Street deals, key players and their intersection with politics. She is the author of three books, including "The Education of Brett Kavanaugh." More about Kate Kelly

Mark Walker is an investigative reporter in the Washington bureau. He was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of Covid-19 in 2020. He grew up in Savannah, Ga., and graduated from Fort Valley State University. More about Mark Walker

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

News and Analysis

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, met in Beijing . The visit came days after the United States threatened new sanctions against Chinese companies if they aided Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency has condemned recent drone strikes at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant , saying “such reckless attacks significantly increase the risk of a major nuclear accident.”

Russian rockets slammed into residential buildings in Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said, killing at least seven people and injuring at least 11 more in the latest assault on Ukraine’s second-largest city .

Conditional Support: Ukraine wants a formal invitation to join NATO, but the alliance has no appetite for taking on a new member  that would draw it into the biggest land war in Europe since 1945.

‘Shell Hunger’: A desperate shortage of munitions in Ukraine  is warping tactics and the types of weapons employed, and what few munitions remain are often mismatched with battlefield needs.

Turning to Marketing: Ukraine’s troop-starved brigades have started their own recruitment campaigns  to fill ranks depleted in the war with Russia.

How We Verify Our Reporting

Our team of visual journalists analyzes satellite images, photographs , videos and radio transmissions  to independently confirm troop movements and other details.

We monitor and authenticate reports on social media, corroborating these with eyewitness accounts and interviews. Read more about our reporting efforts .

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Airfares jump 20-25% amid Vistara woes, high travel demand

At a time when peak summer travel period is round the corner, the airline industry is grappling with challenges in scaling up capacity to match demand and are even using larger aircraft on domestic routes..

Travellers will have to shell out more for domestic flights this summer season, with airfares surging 20-25 per cent amid Vistara flight cancellations and strong air travel demand, according to industry experts. At a time when peak summer travel period is round the corner, the airline industry is grappling with challenges in scaling up capacity to match demand and are even using larger aircraft on domestic routes.

Faced with pilot woes, Vistara has cut 25-30 flights daily or 10 per cent of its total capacity, a development that comes when the country's airline industry is already operating with reduced number of aircraft due to the bankruptcy of Go First and grounding of over 70 planes by IndiGo over engine issues. An analysis by travel portal ixigo showed that spot fares on certain routes jumped up to 39 per cent during the April 1-7 period compared to March 1-7 period.

During the given period, the one way spot fares for Delhi-Bengaluru flights climbed 39 per cent, while it rose 30 per cent for Delhi-Srinagar flights. The rise was 12 per cent for Delhi-Mumbai services and 8 per cent in case of Mumbai-Delhi services, as per the analysis.

Bharatt Malik, Senior VP – Air and Hotel Business at travel portal Yatra Online, said the anticipated average airfare surge in the current summer schedule, encompassing both domestic and international routes, is projected to range between 20-25 per cent. "Vistara's decision to reduce flights by 10 per cent has affected ticket prices on major domestic routes. We've observed a significant surge in fares, with prices skyrocketing by approximately 20-25 per cent across key routes such as Delhi-Goa, Delhi-Kochi, Delhi-Jammu, and Delhi-Srinagar," Malik said.

He also said that one of the key reasons for the higher airfares is reduction in flight operations by Vistara and added that escalating fuel costs as well as a heightened demand for summer travel has further contributed to the increase. Vistara is to operate more than 300 flights daily in the ongoing summer schedule that started on March 31.

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"We are carefully scaling back our operations by around 25-30 flights per day, i.e. roughly 10 per cent of the capacity we were operating. This will take us back to the same level of flight operations as at the end of February 2024, and provide the much-needed resilience and buffer in the rosters," Vistara said in a statement on Sunday. ixigo said spot fares have surged by 20-25 per cent on some routes due to rising demand before the peak summer travel season and some flight cancellations.

"However, this is a temporary disruption caused by last-minute flight cancellations and fares should stabilise in a few weeks as soon as flight schedules normalise," it said. Jagannarayan Padmanabhan, Senior Director and Global Head, Transport, Mobility, and Logistics Consulting at CRISIL Market Intelligence and Analytics, said the impact of higher airfares on travellers is expected to be substantial.

"As we enter the busy season, we anticipate a 5-7 per cent increase in airfare, with pricing pressure particularly notable on trunk routes like Delhi-Mumbai and Mumbai-Bengaluru. Given that much of the upcoming travel will be for personal reasons and with family, the impact is expected to be substantial. "Consequently, a considerable number of travellers might choose rail travel for shorter distances instead," he noted.

According to Malik, flights to popular domestic destinations like Ladakh, Manali and Goa have seen a 20 per cent uptick in prices, reflecting a surge in demand for both staycations and seasonal getaways. Vistara has a fleet of 70 planes comprising 63 aircraft from A320 family and 7 wide-body Boeing 787s.

Further, the carrier has deployed larger aircraft like B787-9 Dreamliner and A321 neo on select domestic routes to combine flights or accommodate more customers. In the ongoing summer schedule, Vistara will be operating 25.22 per cent more weekly flights at 2,324.

Indian airlines will operate a total of 24,275 weekly domestic flights during the summer schedule starting from March 31, a nearly 6 per cent increase compared to the year-ago period. The number of weekly departures is just 2.30 per cent higher as against 23,732 flights being operated by the scheduled carriers in the winter schedule that ended on March 30, according to aviation regulator DGCA.

IndiGo, Air India and Vistara will operate more flights while SpiceJet will reduce departures during the 2024 summer schedule that spans from March 31 to October 26.

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Modernising Moscow: how the Russian capital is transforming its transport services

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Posted: 4 October 2018 | Maxim S. Liksutov | No comments yet

Luke Antoniou, Editor of Intelligent Transport, asks Maxim S. Liksutov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow and Head of the Department of Transport and Road Infrastructure Development, about the development of Moscow’s public transport network in the last few years and what the future holds.

What is transport like in Moscow at the moment and how has it changed in recent years?

Since 2010, the Moscow transport system has changed dramatically, especially when considered against the lack of change throughout the preceding decades. Consequently, the network has become more comfortable, faster and more accessible for residents across the city.

We have expanded the subway at a quicker rate than ever before in its 80-year history.  In eight years, 73 new metro stations and the Moscow Central Circle (MCC) have entered into operation.

We have renewed the ground public transport network, with present routes altered and additional routes introduced following the requests of Muscovites. Since 2010, 148 new routes have been introduced to the city and by the end of 2018, ground public transport will be launched along another 29 routes. The transport operators have managed to keep operations running to schedule 95 per cent of the time, meaning there are minimal delays for passengers. This is a great improvement in comparison to 2010, where they were on time only 76 per cent of the time i. This is partially thanks to the introduction of detached lanes for public transport, which have made mobility more comfortable for the 2.5 million passengers.

Today in Moscow, 19 million trips are made using public transport every day – 14 per cent more than in 2010. In morning rush hour, 68 per cent of citizens take public transport to get to work, choosing metro, buses, trams and suburban trains. During the last eight years we began to form a new backbone of transport, building and reconstructing not only the metro and MCC, but the roads, junctions, tunnels, bike lanes, organised pedestrian spaces and streets.

We have also managed to regulate taxi operation in the city – today there are 55,000 legal taxis working in the city. The waiting time is one of the shortest in the world – only five to seven minutes on average.

Car-sharing has been introduced to complement the existing public transport system. Car-sharing is a private investment sector that has developed incredibly quickly; in 2015, there were only 100 shared cars in Moscow, but now there are 11,500.

Since 2010, the average car speed in Moscow has increased by 16 per cent as congestion has eased. The introduction of paid parking, a decrease in the number of road accidents by 59 per cent since 2010, the development of intelligent transport systems and the increasing popularity of public transport have all contributed to a decrease in congestion.

At the Moscow Urban Forum, the Dutch company TomTom supplied evidence of our success with varying statistics. In 2018, congestion in Moscow decreased by 25 per cent compared with the peak year – 2012. The decrease in congestion is proved by traffic statistics at certain streets. For example, in the first half of 2018, the average speed at the Garden Ring increased by 16 per cent, at the Moscow Ring Road by 12 per cent, and one can now drive through the Third Ring Road and major city highways 11 per cent faster.

What plans are your plans for further modernisation?

It is imperative that we continue developing – and that is why we will continue launching new stations and lines on both the underground and overground metro whilst developing suburban rail transport and renewing rolling stock with more comfortable vehicles. This will help make travelling through Moscow faster and more enjoyable.

After renewing 40 per cent of the Moscow Metro trains, today we receive only the most modern metro trains – ‘Moskva’, which are produced in Russia. Their capacity is 15 per cent higher than a regular train. Thanks to the greater number of seats, improved air conditioning, enhanced noise insulation and other advantages, passenger experience on the new vehicles is more comfortable. During 2018 we have received 292 modern ‘Moskva’ cars, increasing the total to 556 cars. By the end of 2018, the Moscow Metro will have received another 206 cars, and in 2019 another 552.

Since 2010, 98 per cent of Moscow’s bus fleet has been renewed, alongside 90 per cent of all types of ground transport rolling stock. In two years we have received more than 200 new ‘Vityaz M’ trams – a modern tram consisting of three eco-friendly cars that caters for passengers with reduced mobility.

Another new project that we are proud of is the Moscow e-bus launch. The first eight e-buses, delivered by Russian manufacturers, already operate within the city’s routes and are charged by a pantograph at ultra-fast charging stations located at the terminus of the route. Along the 14km route the Moscow e-bus uses no more than 20 per cent of the battery’s capacity.

Manufacturers collect operational data – that is under the control of the city’s transport operator, SUE ‘Mosgortrans’ – from the vehicles 24/7. This is used to help maintain the vehicles and reduce down time and costs. By the end of 2018, another 100 e-buses will be delivered to Moscow, and in 2019 we are expecting 500 more. In 2020 and 2021 we plan to annually purchase 300 e-buses and in 2021 we will have completely stopped purchasing diesel buses.

By the beginning of 2020 we aim to launch a large project – the Moscow Central Diameters – that will be focused on ensuring suburban rail routes go through the city. It will help to better integrate rail into the city’s transport infrastructure and encourage more people to use overground rail during their daily commute. At first, two diameters will be launched with four more scheduled to be launched before 2023.

How are rail advances helping develop Moscow as a city?

The Moscow Central Diameters (MCD) is a fundamentally new system of overground metro that will be constructed on the base of existing railway infrastructure. The goal of the project is to connect existing radial routes and turn them into through-routes, which will connect surrounding towns with the city centre.

Passengers will be able to switch between metro, the MCD and other public transport by using convenient interchanges will encourage residents to leave privately-owned cars at home, reducing congestion, improving air quality and developing Moscow as a city. Overall, we forecast a general reduction in the load on the city’s transport infrastructure by 12 per cent.

How big a part has digitalisation played in updating Moscow’s transport network?

It can be argued that Moscow is further ahead of many megalopolises in terms of the digitalisation of transport services. Almost all passenger services are available via a smartphone with 80 per cent of taxi bookings made through mobile apps and 86 per cent of paid parking transactions performed in-app. Car-sharing and bike-sharing are also fully dependent on the existence of a digital application. The public transport operators have mobile apps available for the passenger to download, which provide route-planning options and offer service information in several foreign languages.

By the end of 2018 turnstiles at all metro stations will be equipped with special readers, so that passengers can pay  using Apple Pay, Samsung Pay or Android Pay (this technology is currently implemented at more than 80 metro stations). So far, only a small proportion of passengers are using these payment options, but the system was only introduced two years ago.

Users of Android-based smartphones with NFC technology can replenish the transport smartcard ‘Troika’ with the help of the ‘Metro Moscow’ app. In the near future we will announce a tender for ticket system modernisation, so that the card can be replenished remotely by all passengers.

There is also the ‘Moscow Helper’ mobile app. The service allows Muscovites to independently influence the traffic situation in the city, and most importantly prevent road accidents caused by improperly parked cars. By using the app, one can record parking violations in the area (with the ‘Stop prohibited’ and ‘Parking prohibited’ features); , improper parking on pavements, pedestrian crossings and taxi ranks; and payment evasion. The app has been installed more than 280,000 times since it launched.

How has urbanisation affected Moscow and how has the city coped with it?

One of Moscow’s most significant challenges is the large concentration of jobs within the city centre: more than 40 per cent of citizens work inside the Third Ring Road, which places a huge weight on the city’s road network.

Therefore, we are required to provide residents of the Moscow agglomeration with fast, comfortable and eco-friendly transport that is a worthy alternative to a personal car, since during peak hours Moscow highways and streets are substantially overloaded at virtually all entrances into the city from the suburbs.

In addition, urban transport is also a driver for improving impacts on the environment. For example, to achieve a significant improvement in the environmental situation in Moscow, we restored order on roads, developed pedestrian areas and bicycle paths, renewed the public transport fleet, and regulated truck traffic, as well as introducing other regulating measures.

Finally, encouraging use of public transport and environmentally-friendly transport also helps improve resident health. A car user on average actively moves less than a minute a day, a public transport passenger, however, moves between eight and 15 minutes, and a cyclist or a pedestrian for approximately 22 minutes. People like these who are physically active every day are at lesser risk to type 2 diabetes by 35-50 per cent, to depression by 20-30 per cent and coronary heart disease by 20-35 per cent.

By the Decree of the Mayor of Moscow on 25 September 2012, he was appointed as Deputy Mayor of Moscow, Head of the Department for Transport and Road Infrastructure Development of Moscow.

Related topics Air Quality , Fleet Management & Maintenance , Passenger Experience , Sustainable Urban Transport

Related cities Moscow , Russia

Related people Maxim S. Liksutov

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• Private Jet Charter

Private Jet to Moscow

When it comes to private aircraft charter services to and from Moscow, Russia, Paramount Business Jets guarantees the safest private jets at the best prices.

Instant Moscow Private Jet Price Estimates

Paramount Business Jets offers the largest selection of luxury jet charters to and from Moscow, Russia. Moscow is one of our busiest charter destination for large VIP jet rentals going to Europe, Asia, North America, and Canada.

The major airports for private travel in the Moscow area include Vnukovo International Airport ( VKO ), Domodedovo International Airport (DME) and Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO) airports. Vnukovo International Airport (VKO) is one of the busiest private jet airports in the world.

A quick aircraft search shows that there are over 74 private jets available for charter in the vicinity of Moscow, and 68 of those private jets are newer than 2000 (YOM). The most popular aircraft types available for charter in the area include midsize jets (Learjet 60XR, Hawker 900XP ), large jets (Challenger 605, Challenger 850, Falcon 2000LX , Falcon 900DX, and Legacy 600), ultra-long-range ( Gulfstream GV , Global Express XRS) and VIP Airliners (Fokker 100 VIP).

In addition, there are Boeing Business Jets and Airbus 319 Corporate Jets in VIP configurations that are available nearby and can be positioned for flights to and from Moscow. We specialize in large VIP charter flights to and from Moscow while offering the best prices.

Private Jet Pricing

How much does a private jet to moscow cost.

The cost of renting a private jet to or from Moscow will mostly depend on which aircraft you choose, how far you fly, and how long you stay before you return.

Here are a few more popular Moscow routes with price estimates included.

Here are the average hourly rental rates based on various aircraft categories. To get a quick Moscow private flight price estimate use our instant cost calculator online.

Very Light Jets Citation Mustang, Eclipse 550, Hondajet, Phenom 100 and similar

Light Jets Citation CJ3, Hawker 400XP, Learjet 40 and similar

Super Light Jets Learjet 75, Phenom 300 and similar

Midsize Jets Citation Excel, Hawker 800XP and similar

Super Midsize Jets Challenger 300, Citation X, Falcon 2000 and similar

Large Jets Challenger 650, Falcon 900LX, Legacy 650 and similar

Ultra Long Range Jets Falcon 7X, Global 7500, Gulfstream G650 and similar

VIP Airliners Airbus ACJ320, Boeing Business Jet, Lineage 100 and similar

Helicopters AW139, Sikorsky S-76C and similar

Note: Moscow private jet charter prices increased by almost 20% from 2020 to 2022 due to COVID. The good news is in 2023, we are seeing gradual decreases in pricing to pre-COVID levels.

Empty Leg Flights

Save on your moscow private charter flights.

These days, over 30% of private jet charters are flying empty either to get into the position for the next booked flight or to return to their home base. These flights are known as empty legs and are one-way private jet flights without any payload or passengers on board.

It often happens that such an empty-leg flight has been paid for in part by the original flyer and is therefore offered at reduced rates. Empty legs offer price advantages with cost savings of up to 75% when compared to standard private jet travel rates .

At any given time, there may be more than 3,000 empty legs available worldwide. Once you let us know about your preferred routes and dates, we can match your air charter schedule with empty-leg charter flights available on the market.

Using multiple platforms, Paramount Business Jets offers the most comprehensive empty-leg flight search on the market.

Moscow Airports

Best airports for your moscow charter flights, airports moscow airports within 50 miles.

Sheremetyevo Airport, UUEE, SVO,

Moscow, Russia

Vnukovo Airport, UUWW, VKO,

Bykovo Airport, UUBB, BKA,

Moscow/Ostafyevo International Business, UUMO, OSF,

Moscow/(Zhukovsky) Ramenskoye, UUBW, ,

Domodedovo Airport, UUDD, DME,

Private Jet Interiors

Moscow private jets by interiors and rates.

Light jets and very light jets are cost-effective solutions for shorter flights to and from Moscow. These aircraft are ideal for individual travel, accommodating 4 to 6 passengers, and boast lower hourly rates, starting at $2,600, and a non-stop range of 1100 to 1900 nautical miles.

For those seeking to travel farther and enjoy non-stop travel across the country, midsize and super-midsize jets offer the perfect balance of range, speed, and passenger capacity. These aircraft can accommodate up to 8 passengers, with a non-stop range of 1300 to 4000 nautical miles and hourly rates starting at $3200.

For those who require the ultimate in luxury, speed, and range, large and ultra-long-range jets are the pinnacle of private aviation. These aircraft are particularly suitable for coast-to-coast or intercontinental flights, accommodating up to 16 passengers in the utmost comfort with a range of 3600 to 6700 nautical miles and hourly rates starting at $5600.

Although the interior design of the aircraft may vary from one aircraft to another, the seating configurations will generally look like the sample interior pictures provided.

Very Light Jets

Super Light Jets

Midsize Jets

Super Midsize Jets

Ultra Long Range Jets

VIP Airliners

Helicopters

Moscow aircraft, aircraft available locally by jet type and age, estimate private flight prices to and from moscow, charter jets faq, your ultimate moscow charter resource, do i have to stop for customs when i fly on a private jet.

Passengers on all international private charter flights will have to stop at customs. In certain countries, you may have to go through customs at a specific port of entry; for example, you must stop in Tahiti to perform customs checks en route to Bora Bora. You’ll also need to stop at the first port of entry when entering the U.S. from Mexico.

How much rest does the crew need before they can depart again?

Crew members are required to have a 10-hour rest period within each 24-hour cycle. The maximum duty day is 14 hours and must be followed by a 10-hour rest period at their hotel. When scheduling a flight, operators usually account for 12 hours of rest instead of 10. These extra two hours allow the crew time to get to their hotel, rest for the required time, and return to the airport.

How long does a fuel stop for a private jet flight take?

The average fuel stop takes 45–60 minutes. To speed up fuel stops, the operator, or pilots may call ahead, so a fuel truck is waiting for the aircraft on arrival. For smaller jets, a fuel stop can take as little as 30 minutes.

Will my private jet charter use the same airport as a commercial airline?

No. When you charter a private jet, you generally fly into a private airport. However, you could access the same airports as a commercial airline if you request to do so or if there are no private airport options. However, using a large mainstream airport like Los Angeles International or London Heathrow is often a bad choice for private jets, as flying to a smaller regional private airport is much faster and often makes for a more luxurious experience.

Is the age of an aircraft a safety factor?

Aircraft age is not a safety factor. However, if the aircraft is older and hasn’t been refurbished properly, it may cause flyers some inconvenience, such as overheating, faulty air conditioning, or faulty plumbing in the lavatory.

How much luggage am I allowed to bring on a private jet?

As a rule of thumb, each seat on a light or midsize jet equates to one passenger and one item of luggage. Each item of luggage is considered to be the standard 23 kilograms, or about 50 lbs. Large jets are designed for long-range trips, which typically involve longer stays, so you can carry more than one item of luggage per person.

Are there aircraft that are wheelchair accessible?

There are many aircraft that are wheelchair accessible. Most of them are large jets or above and have a straight aisle. If the jet has a zigzag aisle – like the Falcon 900 – it will be difficult to maneuver the wheelchair onboard the aircraft. You’ll also need the right type of wheelchair; many motorized wheelchairs won’t fit and can’t be collapsed. If this is the case, you’ll need a smaller, temporary wheelchair. Some aircraft operators have smaller wheelchairs that can be used. Please speak with your Paramount private jet expert to review your aircraft options.

Can I fly with large sums of cash?

Yes, you can. This is a common occurrence for many private jet clients. You can fly with up to $5 million in cash as long as you declare that cash when coming through customs. For domestic trips, there’s no limit and no need to declare it.

Which private jets come with flight attendants?

In the United States, large jets and above are required to have flight attendants onboard; in Europe, flight attendants are used on midsize jets and above. Flight attendants require their own seats. Larger jets and above have a jump seat near the cockpit for the flight attendant to use, meaning the attendant generally stays out of the cabin.

Which airports offer ramp access, allowing the client to drive their car right up to their private jet?

Private jet clients can often have a limo drive them right up to the private jet, or even drive their own car to the plane. That said, different airports have different policies, and some may not offer ramp access. Please speak with your Paramount Aviation Advisor to review your options for a given trip.

Do private jets come with Wi-Fi?

Many private jets do have Wi-Fi, and it’s increasingly available free of charge on U.S. domestic flights. On international flights, prices range from $3.00-$8.50 USD per megabyte used. This means that opening up social media sites that are rich in images and videos could quickly cost you $20 – and downloading a feature-length movie could cost thousands!

When is on-demand private jet charter better than buying a block of hours?

Private jet charter can be a lot cheaper than buying a block of hours for a one-way flight, as you can access floating fleets or an empty leg to reduce the cost. With a block of hours, the price covers a round trip. If you only fly one-way, you are effectively paying double.

What is a carbon-neutral flight?

Every aircraft burns jet fuel and emits a certain amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. This can be offset via one of several carbon offset programs that allow private jet clients to purchase a certain number of carbon credits to offset the emissions from their flights. A carbon-neutral flight is one that offsets the carbon emissions it uses via a formal process.

Can I have a flexible departure time for my private jet flight?

Yes, it is possible to have a flexible departure when flying privately. Operators typically offer a 30-minute to two-hour window, but you can request a longer window as long as it doesn’t interfere with the maximum crew duty day or their next scheduled flight. Please confirm with your Paramount Aviation Advisor at the time of booking your jet.

When should I hire a Boeing Business Jet?

Boeing Business Jets (BBJs) have unique amenities that extend far beyond sheer size and are often equipped with 1-2 bedrooms and 2-3 bathrooms (one more of those bathrooms may even offer stand-up showers.) These airliner-based executive aircraft also feature tall or ‘stand-up’ cabins that are also longer and wider than more typical corporate aircraft.

How soon can I have a private jet ready from the time I call in the request?

Generally speaking, with as little as 4 hours of notice. However, we have had wheels up in as little as 32 minutes from the time our client called us to book the flight and had them in the air. It depends on a few factors, such as how long it takes for the pilots to arrive at the airport (generally, there is a 2-hour call-out time for the pilots), and whether the aircraft is ready to go at the airport with no repositioning needed. Our Jet Card members enjoy faster booking since they have funds on account and can confirm a flight with a simple email.

Can I access my luggage while in flight?

On most private jets, you will be able to access your luggage during the flight. That’s because luggage and passengers are situated on the same level. This is in contrast to commercial airlines, where checked luggage is stored in a cargo hold. On large private jets, luggage is often stored in a compartment behind the lavatory, which means easy access to your bags.

When are private jet charter landing and takeoff slots applicable?

A landing or takeoff slot is simply a small window of time in which your aircraft is scheduled to fly in or out of the airport. You will need a landing and takeoff slot if you fly to a high-density airport in the United States or one that is hosting a special event with a significant number of aircraft arriving and departing. If you’re flying internationally, you will need a landing and takeoff slot for all major European cities. Please check with your Paramount Aviation Advisor at the time of booking for a specific route.

What kind of in-flight catering is available on a private jet?

Other than the standard snacks and drinks, you can order local cuisine options for your catering on board. In short, anything that doesn’t need to be cooked can be ordered; hot food must be precooked and then warmed on board.

Can I bring pets with me on private jet flights?

Of course! Just let us know in advance. The majority of the operators and aircraft owners allow pets onboard. In some cases, a small cleaning fee may apply. That said, there are specific requirements that must be met when traveling with your pet, including making sure that all documentation and vaccination records for your pet(s) are correct and up-to-date. Dogs and cats must also be at least eight weeks old and weaned when traveling within the U.S.

Would you like our assistance?

24/7 customer service is there for you.

Paramount Jet Card Program

Our Private Jet Card Membership offers a pre-paid program that gives you access to the finest and safest private jets in the world

From the blog

We've put together an insightful guide spotlighting today’s most budget-friendly private jets, highlighting not only the most cost-effective rental options but also the best deals if you're looking to purchase. This guide dives into the world’s most economical private jets, comparing hourly rental rates and purchase prices to give you a clear picture of the best deals out there. Below, we detail three of the cheapest private jets in each category. Feel free to explore the links for each aircraft to delve deeper into their specs and backstories. Our goal? To make your entry into the luxurious realm of private jet travel as accessible and affordable as possible. Take a look at the most attractive private jet rental and purchase prices available right now:

On Monday, April 8, 2024, residents of North America will witness something that will not occur again for 20 years when the Earth, moon, and the sun line up to create a solar eclipse. Regarded as one of nature's most spectacular events, people along the path of the solar eclipse will witness a surreal midday darkness as the moon blocks out the light from the sun.

In observance of International Women's Day, a global celebration that shines a light on the achievements of women and calls for greater gender equality, the aviation industry reflects on its journey towards inclusivity and diversity.

Popular routes

• Dubai to Moscow: Private Jet Rental
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Moscow City Overview

Located on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District, Moscow is the capital and largest city of Russia. Moscow serves as the political, scientific, and business heart of Russia demonstrating the country's abilities at their most extreme.

With its long, rich history and strong traditional heritage, Moscow has attracted both business and leisure travelers from all over the world. The cosmopolitan city of Moscow is filled with historic monuments, excellent museums, unique galleries, impressive churches and cathedrals, and beautiful parks. Moscow is well known for being home to the Kremlin and Red Square. 

Popular tourist attractions in Moscow include the Poklonnaja mountain, Bolshoi Theater , St. Basil's Cathedral, Cathedral of Christ the Savior, State Tretyakov Gallery , Novodevichy Convent, Mausoleum, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts , State Museum of the East, Palace of the Romanov Boyars, and Kuskovo Estate. Visitors can take a ride on one of the world's busiest metro systems while admiring its famous architecture and artwork.

Events near Moscow

Top private jet destinations near moscow, top private jet destinations in the usa.

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Arriving in Moscow soon? Here's a guide on riding to and from city airports

Your Moscow tour is about to begin and you just landed in the city. How will you go to the city centre without relying on anyone or getting ripped off by taxi drivers? Or, probably, you are in a hurry to take a connection flight from another airport or head to the railway station to catch the train on the Trans-Siberian route. Students are likely to take the next train to the university in another city in Russia.

Know all the options to travel to and from the airport beforehand if you have not engaged a tour company for the hotel transfer or city tour.

Premier airport shuttle train, named Aeroexpress, is the fastest and most convenient option. There are express bus service as well apart from taxis. No doubt, these three options are comfortable.

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If you are not in a hurry and with only a backpack, hop onto a city bus; but most buses won't go to the heart of the city. The bus ride is the cheapest, but not comfortable for a tourist.

Choose one mode of transport that suits you well in terms of convenience, money, time and safety.

Knowing about the city airports and their location will help you take the right call. Also some knowledge of the main railway stations and the metro railway too will help as you explore the city or criss-cross it for travelling out.

A) Airports

Befitting its status as a megacity and a major transportation hub, Moscow has four international airports — Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, Vnukovo and the newest, Zhukovsky — located in different locations away from the downtown but often closer to the nearest flight paths of regions/destinations served by the airports.

Any domestic or international tourist is likely to arrive at one of these four commercial airports and most likely in either of the first two — Sheremetyevo or Domodedovo — which are located at the opposite ends of the city.

A fifth one — Ostafyevo International Business Airport — is not for civil aviation, but, as the name suggests, for business aviation. (The airport is for private aircraft, charter services, aircraft maintenance, refuelling and parking and the like apart from the dedicated use by Russian energy giant Gazprom.)

All these airports lie around the city in all the directions and travel between the two nearest ones requires an hour or more by road.

There are a few more airports in and around the city but they are either for military or cargo aircraft.

1. Sheremetyevo International Airport

Sheremetyevo (SVO) is the busiest airport in Russia itself and the second-busiest in Europe. It is to the northwest of Moscow, about 35 km from the centre of the city, viz. the Red Square.

SVO is the best option for domestic flights too. Being the base of the Russian national carrier Aeroflot, flights to all corners of the vast country are easily available.

The formal name is Sheremetyevo Alexander S Pushkin International Airport.  

2. Domodedovo International Airport

Domodedovo (DME), the second busiest airport in Russia, is just behind Sheremetyevo in terms of passenger traffic. It is about 45 km southeast of Moscow.

The formal name is Domodedovo Mikhail Lomonosov International Airport.

Travellers intending to take connection flight from SVO or DME after arriving at either of the two should book a flight with a gap of at least 4 hours. A taxi ride between these two airports — 70 km apart — will take about 2 hours and 15 minutes: more with a major traffic block on the way; however, from Domodedovo to Vnukovo Airport the taxi can take you in 1 hour 30 minutes.

From Domodedovo the taxi ride to major railway stations will be between 1 hour 30 minutes and 2 hours.

At the Domodedovo airport a treat awaits cargeeks: a collection of vintage cars is on display. NOTE:

1. A transit visa is required for international travellers boarding flight from a different airport or even to visit the city after first arriving at another one. Please try to get the connection flight that departs from the arrival airport in less than 24 hours to avoid the hassle of obtaining a transit visa.

2. Transit visa is valid for 72 hours if travelling by air. The validity is 10 days if you intend a road journey to another country.

3. To apply for a transit visa at the Russian Embassy/Consulate you only need 1) a copy of the visa of the destination country, if at all that is required, 2) DEFINITELY the copy of fight tickets for arriving and departing from airports in Russia. On your return if you intend to transit again, please don't forget to mention Double Entry as you apply for the transit visa, 3) and a cover letter stating the purpose and itinerary.  

3. Vnukovo International Airport

Vnukovo Andrei Tupolev International Airport (VKO) is closer to the city than the other airports. It is just 28 km southwest of the city centre. It is the oldest airport in operation in Moscow. It is smaller than SVO and DME and trails them in terms of traffic. The airport primarily serves flights to and from the North Caucasus and destinations near the Black Sea. Destinations south of Moscow too has connectivity from here. The domestic and overseas destinations include Grozny, Tashkent, Astana, Bukhara, St Petersburg, Baku, Sochi, Yeravan, Dushanbe, Samara, Dubai and Istanbul. Flights to even a few Far East destinations in Russia are also available. Flights to Ukraine stand cancelled with the outbreak of hostilities in early 2021.  

4. Zhukovsky International Airport

Zhukovksy (ZIA) airport commenced commercial services in 2016. It is 43 km southeast of the city centre and close to the defunct Bykovo Airport. Domodedovo airport too is nearly of the same distance from Zhukovksy but to its southwest. Destinations served from Zhukovksy include Antalya, İstanbul, Almaty, Dushanbe, Bishkek, Sabetta (on the Yamal Peninsula).

B) Major Railway Stations

Moscow has rail connectivity to all parts of Russia. International trains link Moscow to cities in Europe and Asia (in China and Mongolia.)

(Trains to Europe stand cancelled with the imposition of sanctions by the West following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.)

Trains depart from 10 railway terminals in Moscow. These are: Belorussky, Kazansky, Kievsky, Kursky, Leningradsky, Paveletsky, Rizhsky, Savyolovsky, Yaroslavsky and Vostochny, the latter being the newest that opened in May 2021.

The stations of the Moscow Metro, though mostly underground, are close to these railway terminals. You have to follow the signs to flit between the railway stations and the nearest metro station; at some places you may have to just cross the road - but don't worry a metro station is always near!

For tourists there is scope for confusion regarding the name of the railway station and the nearest metro station. For instance the metro station closest to Paveletsky railway station is called Paveletskaya.

Metro stations can be identified with the distinct sign 'M'.

Do you know the Moscow Metro themselves are tourist attractions?

Suburban trains and monrail too are there, but none as important as the legendary and century-old Moscow Metro — "one of the most beautiful underground systems in the world."

You may download the interactive Yandex Moscow Metro app to identify stations and lines as well as to plan your trip.

During your Moscow tour you are unlikely to miss the Russian Railways' logo stylised in Cyrillic as PZD - the Russian acronym of Rossiyskie Sheleznye Dorogi.  

1. No long-distance trains run from Savyolovsky.

2. No suburban trains are operated from Vostochny.

3. 'Vostochny' means 'Eastern'. Vostochny terminal came up at the site of the Cherkizovo railway station. It is the first to be built in ther last 100 years; Kievsky, the last one, was inaugurated in 1918.

4. Leningradsky, which is in operation since 1851, is the oldest railway station in Moscow.   

C) Aeroexpress Trains

New-generation double- and single-decker high-speed trains, named Aeroexpress, provide the most comfortable and the fastest connectivity between the main airports in Moscow and the major railway stations in the city.

The rail link to Moscow city by way of Aeroexpress is available at Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Vnukovo airports.

The trains also stop at a few stations in between their terminals at airports and the downtown railway stations.

Main routes and travel time

1. Sheremetyevo Airport-Belorussky Railway Station. (65 minutes from/till SVO Terminals B and C.)

2. Sheremetyevo Airport-Savyolovsky Rail Terminal (of suburban trains). (60 min from/till SVO Terminals B and C.

3. Domodedovo Airport-Paveletsky Railway Station. 45 minutes

4. Vnukovo Airport-Kievsky Rail Terminal. 35 minutes

Where else to board/alight?

• At Sheremetyevo Airport the Aeroexpress train starts from Terminals B and C. It can be boarded from Terminals D, E, F too where the train arrives 10 min after departing.

• In the city, the Sheremetyevo Aeroexpress train can be boarded from a special platform near the Okruzhnaya station on the Moscow Central Circle (MCC) metro line. To reach the platform you need to cross the road after exiting the MCC Okruzhnaya. Don't worry: just follow the directions. (Okruzhnaya is 10 km north of Belorussky Railway Station.)

• The Domodedovo Aeroexpress train stops at Domodedovo town railway station on Platform 3.

• In downtown Moscow, you may also board or alight from the Domodedovo Aeroexpress train at a separate platform built at a short distance from the MCC Verkhny Kotly metro station. This is near the Paveletsky Rail Terminal where the Aeroexpress to Domodedovo begins or ends journey. Nagatinskaya metro station is also near Verkhny Kotly.

• Non-Aeroexpress trains taking the line between Domodedovo town and Paveletsky too stop at the beforementioned Verkhny Kotly Aeroexpress platform.

Tickets and fare

Aeroexpress has two classes of coaches: Standard and Business.

Tickets can be bought at the Aeroexpress terminal at airports and railway stations. You may even buy them online in advance: 90 days ahead.

At airports you may even come across sales personnel in distinct uniform as you proceed to the Aeroexpress terminal. They may even guide you.

Ticket vending machine is another option as long as you can make out the instructions or know to operate it. Also, using your card you may buy a digital ticket at the turnstiles using the Pay@Gate service.

The lowest fare for one ride is 450 Roubles (for Standard class); for round-trip it is 450 RUB. The fare for Business class is 1,000 and 1,900 RUB for single and round trips, respectively. A family pack too is available - roundtrip ticket for two adults and two children costs 1,400 RUB; it's free for children below 5 years. (NB: The prices as of Nov, 2022.)

Aeroexpress trains run from morning (by six o'clock) to midnight every 30 minutes. The travel time is 45 to 60 minutes.

On the train there is ample space to place your luggage. Bulky ones, if any, you may keep it on the shelf close to the door. In other words you don't have to drag them to place them near or above your seat. Save your energy for the city tour! Your luggage is safe: cameras are keeping an eye everywhere in Moscow. Never mind casting an occasional glance on the goods.

Light refreshments are served on the Aeroexpress trains. Buy.

For Aeroexpress seat bookings and to know about the exact fare, timings and intermediate stoppages please check the official website .

1. It is easy to spot the directions to Aeroexpress terminal at airports. Just follow the signs spotted at the arrival terminals. At railway stations and at metro stations the directions for the Aeroexpress terminal may not be that conspicuous.

2. You have to press the RED button on the door to open it for alighting from the train. Tourists are likely to wait for the door to open automatically; at intermediate stations the delay may prove costly as the train will depart with you still on board!

D) Aeroexpress Express Bus

Aeroexpress express buses too are in operation from Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo airports. Look for the Aeroexpress logo on red buses. Tickets can be bought from the driver if you could not purchase at the counter or online or through the vending machines or as mentioned above.

The buses to Sheremetyevo Airport Terminals B and C are available from Khovrino metro station at exit no: 2. They are available every 15-30 minutes from morning to midnight (05:50 to 00:05). Route No: 1195.

At the airport you can board the bus near the exit from the Terminals B and C.

The travel time is about 20 minutes. The fare is 250 RUB.

The Aeroexpress express bus to Domodedovo Airport runs from the Domodedovskaya metro station. The travel time is about 40 minutes and the fare is 80 RUB. The frequency is 20 minutes. Route No: 1185.

At the Domodedovskaya metro station the bus is parked near exit No.10. At the airport it is stationed on the forecourt opposite Exit No.3.

The bus service on this route too is available from early morning to midnight.

E) City Bus and Marshrutka Shuttle

Regular non-express city buses and vans (marshrutka) that ply to nearest metro stations are also available outside the airports. After getting down from the bus/van, take the metro train to head to your destination in the downtown or any other part of the city.

As buses and vans are the cheapest option backpackers and those on a shoe-string budget may try them for reaching the hostel or other accommodation. Often non-tourists who have visited the city earlier take the bus to reach educational and industrial centres or even to visit friends, relatives, business contacts etc.

The bus and van fares are less than 100 RUB. Expect extra luggage fee.

Journey time on buses and shuttle vans running to and fro airports ranges from 30 min to 1 hour. Before your arrival, refer to the airport website for exact timings, cancellations, new routes and fares.

Bus journeys offer an immersive experience and familiarise you with the intracies of city life.

From Sheremetyevo Airport

Route Nos: 817 and 948 go to Planernaya metro station which is on the metro line No. 7 or Tagansko–Krasnopresnenskaya line — the busiest. The journey time is about 40 minutes. (817 is a bus and 948 a van.)

Route Nos: 851 and 949 go to Rechnoy Vokzal metro Station which is on metro line No.2 or the Zamoskvoretskaya line. (851 is a bus and 949 a van.)

Route No. Н1 has a night bus going to Kitay-gorod metro station which is on metro line Nos 6 and 7. Journey time: upto 1 hour.

This late-night service is very helpful for those landing at night at Sheremetyevo and have a hotel booking in the heart of the city, close to the Kremlin and Red Square. The frequency is every 30 minutes from 23:45 to 04:45. It is about midnight the Aeroexpress runs its last train of the day before resuming trips around the daybreak.

There are also buses to the towns of Khimki and Lobnya from morning to night from the Sheremetyevo Airport.

(Planernaya and Rechnoy Vokzal are to the north of the city and Kitay-gorod is at the centre.)

From Domodedovo Airport

Buses and shuttle buses depart from the forecourt (Exit No. 3).

Route No.308 goes to Domodedovskaya metro station which is on the metro line No.2 or Zamoskvoretskaya metro. Journey time: about 45 minutes.

Route No.30 is to Domodedovo town. Journey time: about 55 minutes.

Route No.11 is to Novoye (New) Domodedovo. Journey time: about 35 minutes.

Route No. 26 is to Krasny Put. Journey time: about 45 minutes.

Route No. 999 is to Ryazan, via Kolomna and Lukhovitsy. This is comparatively a long-distance route further southeast of Domodedovo. Journey time to Ryazan is 3 to 3 1/2 hours; Lukhovitsy is a little more than 2 hours and Kolomna is a little more than 1/2 hours. For these destinations the fares are from 400 to 600 RUB.

Shuttle bus No. 52 goes to Vzletnaya. Journey time: 20-25 minutes.

Shuttle bus No. 17К goes to Rastunovo (Zarya). Journey time: 40 minutes.

(Krasny Put is near the centre of the city, about 6 km from Red Square. Novoye Domodedovo, a modern residential estate, is just 15 km west of the airport. Vzletnaya is famous for a hotel about 10 km from the Domodedovo Airport.)

From Vnukovo Airport

Buses displaying Route Nos.611, 611c and 611ф (ф = f) go to Yugo-Zapadnaya metro station which is on line no. 1. Travel time is 40 minutes or less.

Mini-bus (Route No. 45M) is also availble from morning to night between the airport and Yugo-Zapadnaya metro station. Find it in front of the terminal A.

From Zhukovsky Airport

At Zhukovsky Airport you don't get direct transport to the heart of Moscow. Of course, taxis do go and they will drop you in about 1 hour. Opt for taxis for your Zhukovsky Airport trips either way.

The other alternative, the cheapest, is a combo of bus and metro ride or bus, train and metro rides.

Here are the options:

• The bus on Route 441 goes to Kotelniki metro station which is on metro line No. 7. Journey time is 1 hour. The metro will take you to the Moscow city centre.

• Take the shuttle bus to Otdyh suburban railway station. Journey time: 20 minutes. At Otdyh take the Sputnik express train to Kazansky Station in the centre of Moscow. Journey time: 40 minutes. Now, go to the nearby metro station, Komsomolskaya, if you want to reach the downtown or other parts of the Moscow city.

Mini bus No. 2 or No. 6 also run between the Zhukovsky Airport and the Otdyh station.

(Kotelniki and Otdyh are to the southeast of the city as is Zhukovsky Airport. )

You will never be stuck in any Moscow airport at whatever time you may arrive. Taxis are available round the clock as in any other major airport the world over. Cab drivers may accost you as soon as you exit from the terminal, but book with an authorized taxi operator at the dedicated desk. First, ensure your safety in a distant land.

As is the global practice, the taxi fare depends on the distance, time of day, and demand. To avoid the risk of over-charging book the taxi online or at the airport taxi desk, but do so only after claiming your baggage.

Taxi stands are near the Arrival halls.

The approximate fare from Sheremetyevo Airport to the city centre is 1,250 RUB, states the SVO website. The downtown ride from Domodedovo Airport will cost about 2,500 RUB, but it is about 1,500 RUB or little more if you are dropped much before (as on Nov 2022).

The fare for premier or luxury car, as to be expected, is higher. You will be charged extra for oversized baggage on taxis.

The authorised taxi operator at Sheremetyevo Airport is Yandex. At Moscow Domodedovo Airport the cab service is run by Domtrans.

Car rental too is available. Min-bus too can be hired if you are part of a large group.

NOTE: Most drivers speak only Russian. Lucky if you find one conversant in English. Use the Yandex Translate app — download it even before you take the flight to Moscow.

We wish you a nice trip.

(The airport websites have been referred to for preparing this tourist guide.)

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