Russia and Turkey formally resumes full charter and regular flights from Tuesday. This decision was made last week by the government's Emergency Response Centre.
Air traffic with Turkey has been limited since mid-April amid a new outbreak of the coronavirus in that country. The number of flights was then reduced to two per week on a reciprocal basis (that is, to four per week). They have so far been operated only by Aeroflot and Turkish Airlines.
Who will resume flights to Turkey?
The Federal Air Transport Agency announced that starting from June 22 it will be possible to operate flights between Russia and Turkey from 32 Russian cities. The fastest way to increase the number of flights to Turkey is Aeroflot: from two flights a week the carrier will increase the frequency of flights up to two times a day from June 25. The national airline will also launch flights from Moscow to Antalya, Dalaman and Bordrum from June 25. Moreover, Aeroflot did not rule out further increase in the number of flights to Turkey, depending on the demand and load of flights.
Turkish Airlines plans to fully resume flights to Russia
Pobeda low-cost airline plans to resume flights to Antalya from July 1. The carrier will use two local airports - Antalya and the neighboring Gazipasha city. Flights will be performed daily. From July 10, S7 is going to restart flight program: the company will also launch daily flights from Moscow to Antalya. Moreover, the largest private carrier in Russia stated its plans to announce other flights to Turkey in the nearest future. Last week Azur Air, Royal Flight and UTair also announced their plans to resume flights to Turkey.
Package tours
Russian tour operators quickly organized programs with flights to Antalya from a number of Russian cities. In some cases the flights for the first days are already 100% full, said the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR) on Monday.
Coral Travel will start sending Russians to Antalya on June 22 on Royal Flight flights from Moscow and Yekaterinburg, then the program will be expanded. On the same day Pegas Touristik customers will be able to fly to Antalya from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Samara, Mineralnye Vody, Novosibirsk, Perm, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinburg and Ufa on Nordwind and Pegas Fly airlines. Anex Tour is also ready to send tourists to Antalya from June 22 by Azur Air flights from Moscow, St. Petersburg, later departure cities will be more, ATOR reported.
Intourist resumes the flight program to Antalya on Red Wings airline from June 22 from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Samara and Rostov-on-Don, the tour operator's press service told TASS. Flights from Yekaterinburg, Ufa, Mineralnye Vody, Nizhny Novgorod will start on June 23.
Information on other Turkish resorts - Dalaman, Bodrum - will appear later, tour operators say. Travel agencies expect a rush of demand for Turkey. So far companies record only a few cases of cancellation of already purchased tours to Russia in favor of Turkey, the Russian Union of Travel Industry (RUTI) told TASS.
According to estimates of Russian Union of Travel Industry President Andrei Ignatyev over 7 million Russians will be able to rest in Turkey this year if epidemic situation allows.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from TASS