Starting on October 25 Koltsovo international airport (part of the Airports of Regions holding) switched to the autumn-winter timetable. For the first time in its history the airport is entering the winter season in the lack of regular international air flights. The key characteristic of the upcoming winter will be the abundance of inland routes – by now regular flights to 47 domestic destinations have been scheduled from Yekaterinburg.
First and foremost, domestic destinations are actively advanced by Koltsovo’s backbone carriers: Urals Airlines and RedWings. Thus RedWings Airlines that is currently creating a transit hub in Yekaterinburg has already begun making flights over nine regional routes: Volgograd, Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Makhachkala, Orenburg and Noyabrsk. Urals Airlines traditionally offers flights to popular long-distance destinations. As of today this is the only carrier to perform flights from Yekaterinburg to Eastern Siberia and Far East, namely to Blagoveshchensk, Vladivostok, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk and Chita.
Direct flights to regions of Russia’s European part as well as Urals, Siberia and Far East will traditionally be available for Yekaterinburg passengers in the new season. The number of flights to a number of destinations will increase several-fold. Thus the number of flights to Voronezh, Noyabrsk, Orenburg and Kazan will double and the number of flights to Nizhnevartovsk will increase from three to five.
Russian resort destinations in Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories, Crimea and Altai remain in the timetable. Thus three airlines will operate up to 16 flights a week to Sochi and up to 7 flights to Simferopol. Up to three weekly flights have been scheduled to Mineralnye Vody, besides two flights to Gorno-Altaysk.
Despite the closing of international air travel from Yekaterinburg, local residents can still travel from Koltsovo abroad using connection flights via Rostov-on-Don, Samara and Kazan, operated by Azurair, SmartAvia, RedWings and RoyalFlight. Since August 1 more than 50,000 passengers have been transported by such flights.
The timetable can be updated, so you can get more precise information about flight dates to various destinations as well as ticket fares and terms of service on the official website of the airport svx.aero in the Seasonal Timetable section and on the sites of the airlines.