Moscow, Russia, Mar. 15
By Ilkin Izzet – Trend:
AZALJET, low-cost brand (subsidiary) of Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL), plans to launch new flights from Azerbaijan’s Lankaran and Nakhchivan cities to Moscow in 2018, Vice-President of the AZAL Eldar Hajiyev said.
He made the remarks Mar. 15 in Moscow at a press conference on the launch of regular flights from the Moscow Vnukovo International Airport to Azerbaijan’s Ganja and Gabala cities.
Hajiyev noted that great interest is shown for Azerbaijan in terms of tourism.
“The number of foreign visitors arriving in Azerbaijan is growing,” he said. “From this point of view, the planned new flights in different directions will further increase this number.”
He went on to add that the number of passengers carried by AZAL increased by 10-11 percent in 2016 compared to 2015.
Hajiyev said that during this period, Baku Heydar Aliyev International Airport increased passenger transportation by 12 percent, having rendered service to 3.25 million passengers.
Hajiyev noted that the first terminal of the airport can render service to six million passengers, the second terminal - to three million passengers.
“We started 2017 also very successfully: in January-February this year the AZAL’s passenger traffic increased by 28 percent compared to the same period in 2016,” Hajiyev said. “In general, for the first two months of this year, the number of passengers who were rendered service by Baku Heydar Aliyev International Airport increased by 34 percent compared to the same period last year.”
In turn, Vasily Alexandrov, the director general at the Moscow Vnukovo International Airport, noted that the passenger traffic to Azerbaijan from the Vnukovo airport is constantly increasing.
He said that Russian tourists have not yet discovered the tourist potential of Azerbaijan, and it is necessary to work in this direction.
In turn, Anton Kuznetsov, the deputy director general at the Vnukovo airport, said that more than 70,000 passengers have been transported to Azerbaijan from the Vnukovo airport since 2015.
