Lufthansa "uparched" From Tatarstan /

Lufthansa "flipped" from Tatarstan

The well-known German concern of air transportation, one of the most authoritative airlines in the world in terms of the number of passengers carried by Lufthansa (Deutsche Lufthansa AG), announced the termination of its activities in the territory of Tatarstan. The airline, which has been carrying out flights for 15 years from Kazan, announced their termination, as it does not see any opportunities to further profit in the Tatarstan market. Simultaneously, the frequency of passenger flights both from Nizhny Novgorod and from Samara was increased. The current situation is considered not the best in terms of Tatarstan's attractiveness for investment capital, although the potential for passenger traffic between Kazan and Frankfurt is not high.

It is worth recalling that the German airline Lufthansa was the first in history, an international carrier operating at the Kazan airport. In addition, it was the only direct direct communication between the cities of Kazan and Frankfurt, which lasted for 15 years.

Air carrier Lufthansa is more profitable to develop and maintain cooperation with Russian airlines that fly from Kazan to Moscow, pick up passengers from Moscow airports and take them to Germany.

According to the press service of Lufthansa, simultaneously with the departure from Kazan and Perm, they will increase their share of the presence in the Volga region and increase the frequency of flights from the international airport Nizhny Novgorod and the Samara airport Kurumoch. The given decision is connected with increase in a stream of transportations of passengers in these directions, the load factor of planes now makes approximately 80%. According to the schedule, which will be effective from April 1, 2013, Lufthansa will fly to Frankfurt six times a week from each of these airports.

The press service of the international airport "Kazan" was given confirmation of this information of the airline, while specifying that the reason for the cancellation of Lufthansa flights remains unknown for them. There is no way to accurately assess how Lufthansa will affect the rest of the air carriers, but this will not affect the economic side of the airport, Arthur Nasrutdinov, the head of sales of the airline AK BARS AERO, believes. In his opinion, both the airport and the carriers always benefit from the presence of a large number of airlines: "The more passengers have the opportunity to fly to different destinations, the better. This raises the level of service and investment attractiveness. "

Azamat Sabirov, who is the general director of the AVT agency that sells and stores tickets, is of the opinion that Lufthansa in Tatarstan simply could not stand competition with such air carriers as S7, Aeroflot, UTair, and Turkish Airlines that make flights to Europe through Moscow. The popularity of Lufthansa flights Kazan-Frankfurt, Azamat Sabirov compares not so much with the fact that residents of the border cities of Tatarstan use the services of Samara airport, since it is closer to them than Kazan.

"We flew to Kazan and Perm for many years and managed to build strong partnerships with many passengers, which is why I particularly regret closing these routes." I know that our flights to Frankfurt were important for the residents, as they allowed them to optimize their way to the most remote corners of the earth, but we can not continue to operate in these regions longer. "