Rosstat reported an increase in prices for economy flights by 22% over the year

The average price for an economy class flight in RUSSIA increased by 22.2% in 2023, Rosstat reported . In 2022, flights have risen in price by 15.6%

The average price for air travel in an economy class cabin in Russia increased by 22.2% in 2023, according to Rosstat data. In December, it reached 7.6 thousand rubles. for 1 thousand km of flight.

This is the sharpest increase since 2008, when average prices for the year rose by 30.9%, according to Rosstat. In 2022, flights increased in price by 15.6%, in 2021 - by 5.97%.

The Ministry of Transport did not respond to RBC’s request at the time of publication. The FAS said that “the period from 2020 to 2022 is not representative given the varying levels of industry support during the pandemic.” At the same time, according to the service, the increase in ticket prices in 2023 compared to 2019 will be no more than 10% - the FAS is now expecting data from airlines for December to summarize monitoring results for the past year.

The largest private airline in Russia, S7 Airlines, reported that after the termination in 2023 of a special program for subsidizing carriers, introduced under sanctions the year before last, “the change in ticket prices is a process that is catching up with accumulated inflation.” They also noted that a direct comparison of 2023 and 2022 is incorrect, and in order to get an objective picture, it is necessary to compare 2023 and 2019: “According to our data, the cost of transportation in an economy class cabin on the Russian domestic market for the period 2019–2023 per 1 thousand. km of track changed by only 4%,” the S7 press service reported.

The carrier emphasized that civil aviation is one of the industries most affected by sanctions, which leads to an increase in transportation costs that is faster than inflation.

According to Rosstat

Rosstat provides the indicator “Flight in the economy class cabin of an aircraft, per 1 thousand km of travel” to be used to calculate the general consumer price index.

Rosstat specialists monitor the dynamics of ticket prices both via the Internet and by visiting ticket offices at airports. Registrars also take into account different booking depths: they “buy” tickets for flights departing in 15 days, in ten days and in three days. As the press service previously explained to RBC, the most popular flights and the fares at which the majority of tickets are purchased are taken into account. As a rule, these are mid-price tickets.

The calculations do not take into account comfort class or business class tickets, as well as tickets that are sold with individual discounts. According to the department’s estimates, 2/3 of the flights and tickets that are included in Rosstat’s price monitoring are flights to Moscow. Also, Rosstat has repeatedly emphasized that they only take into account tickets for flights within Russia.

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According to data (available from RBC) of the Yandex Travel service, of the top 10 most popular destinations in the country, the strongest price increase was recorded on flights to Mineralnye Vody (+50% to the cost of a flight in 2022, up to 14,835 rubles per ticket per person round trip). Prices for flights to Makhachkala increased by 49% over the year (average price - 15.56 thousand rubles).

Flights to St. Petersburg increased in price by 33%, to an average of 10.68 thousand rubles, to Ufa - by 30%, to 9.52 thousand rubles, to Moscow - by 29%, to 10.05 thousand. rub. Tickets to Kaliningrad and Yekaterinburg have increased in price by 20–21%.

As for international directions, the dynamics in them are multidirectional. Thus, flights to CHINA fell in price by 25.5%, to an average price of 57.74 thousand rubles. in 2023 versus 77.49 thousand rubles. in 2022, according to Yandex. The cost of air tickets to Turkey decreased by 11%, to 33.05 thousand rubles. There and back again. Flights to Kazakhstan also became cheaper (-3.4%). The cost of tickets to Armenia, the UAE and Belarus remained at the 2022 level - on average 24.27 thousand rubles, 49.53 thousand and 11.2 thousand rubles. respectively. At the same time, prices for tickets to Uzbekistan and Israel increased by 6%, to Thailand by 8%, and to Kyrgyzstan by 13%.

According to the vice-president of the Russian Union of Travel Industry, Dmitry Gorin, the average level of price increases on domestic flights was even lower than on international flights. Flights to the countries of Southeast Asia and the post-Soviet space have become more expensive due to the emergence of direct flights.

“Often on long-distance flights, transit transportation (with a transfer) is cheaper than direct transportation. And in 2023, more direct flights of Russian airlines abroad appeared: if in 2022 they operated to 32 countries of the world, then in 2023 - to 41. Destinations opened such as Mauritius, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Vietnam , Sanya (China, Hainan Island),” recalled Gorin. It was possible to reduce the cost of flights to Turkey against the backdrop of an increase in the frequency of flights: during the peak season this year, up to 1,250 flights from Russia were carried out weekly from 22 Russian cities to five cities in Turkey, and a year earlier the number of flights per week was 750.

Why have prices increased?

Executive DIRECTOR of the AviaPort agency Oleg Panteleev noted that along with rising prices, traffic volumes are growing, and seat occupancy is not decreasing.

“There is a high effective demand for air travel, due to the fact that the income of the flying part of the population in 2023 grew no slower than the price of air tickets. In addition, the factor of deferred demand, which formed back in 2022 and was realized last year, was at work,” the expert noted. He states that now airlines do not seek to transport passengers at any cost, even at a loss to themselves.

The relatively high rate of price growth in 2023 is due to the fact that airlines have not passed on their growing costs to passengers since the beginning of the decade: in 2020–2021, this was hampered by the pandemic; in 2022, the increased costs were offset by large-scale government support (an additional 125 billion rubles), in exchange for which the government demanded that prices be kept low. And from the spring of 2023, pricing became completely market-based. “If in 2022 airlines incentivized passengers with rubles, then last year it became obvious that passengers were quite ready to fly at higher prices,” notes Panteleev.

The increase in airline costs is still associated with factors such as the cost of aviation fuel, the cost of aircraft maintenance and repair, since most of these costs are denominated in more expensive dollars, and foreign suppliers of spare parts and services have increased their prices taking into account sanctions risks. The increase in airline service fees at Russian airports also plays a role. “Moreover, rates for flights of Russian carriers are growing faster than service rates for foreign airlines,” he stated. Finally, the wage fund is also increasing: in order to retain teams, it is necessary to offer employees competitive salaries.

For example, the Aeroflot group’s maintenance expenses for the nine months of last year (indicators for the year were not published) increased by 57.4% by 2022, to 15.6 billion rubles; expenses for servicing aircraft and passengers increased by 34.3%, to RUB 82.7 billion. The share of these expenses in OPEX is about 26%. Fuel purchases now account for 36.7% of the group’s expenses versus 26% back in 2021, according to the carrier’s presentations.

“For many years the market lived on the border of operating profitability, and in the last five years it was completely in a severe crisis mode, one phase of which gave way to another (after the covid-19 pandemic came sanctions . -). As a result, carriers had no internal resources left to absorb rising costs, which, after a decrease in the level of state support, began to translate into price dynamics,” notes Alexander Gushchin, director of the ACRA corporate ratings group. At the same time, demand for air travel is traditionally sensitive to price dynamics, so rising ticket prices may in the future have a negative impact on passenger traffic, he concluded.

At the end of 2023, Russian airlines, according to operational data from the Ministry of Transport, transported 105 million passengers, which is 10% more than the result of 2022.