‘Aeroflot Is Set To Have Europe’s Youngest Fleet’

Aeroflot has been making the headlines for a major overhaul worldwide. Vitaly M Vasyutkin, general manager-India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, Aeroflot-Russian Airlines, emphasised to Bhisham Mansukhani just why Aeroflot is a high quality airline that connects India to Russia

What are your airline’s immediate plans for India?

We are considering using the winter open sky policy to add flights on the Mumbai and Delhi route to take the total frequencies up to seventeen flights a week. We are also trying to put the brand of Russia forward in India alongwith travel agents and the government of Russia because boosting tourism will raise load factors. There is also an affluent class of Russian tourists that want to come to India but not through charters. That is a large and latent market. We are creating an effective hub and spoke system whereby we fly the Russian tourists to India and give them immediate onward connectivity via our local partners Air Sahara and Indian Airlines with whom we have special airfare agreements. We also have a codesharing agreement with Air India and will soon be inducted into the Sky Team. The benefit of joining such an alliance is the network and ability to tap new markets.

There was an existing notion about Aeroflot being a no-frill carrier. Please comment.

This is a misgiving. It was perhaps somewhat true many years ago. As of now, Aeroflot is probably more expensive than some of the other scheduled carriers to Europe.

What segment constitutes your biggest percentage of Indian passengers?

Right now the business traveller is our biggest client out of India as trade between the two countries is surging in the area of engineering and exports but tourism both ways is also a market that can grow further. Alongwith the Indian travel fraternity, we need to create awareness for Russia’s tourist attractions here.

Are you planning to introduce any new aircraft on the Indian route? What are your future aircraft acquisition plans?

We are in the process of buying 18 Airbus A320s and nine Boeing 767s. Aeroflot is set to have Europe’s youngest fleet of aircraft. Our target for the Indian market is to top the current 80 per cent load factors.

What onboard and airport facilities can Indian travellers look forward to?

We have all the possible international standard amenities including lounges for business travellers at Moscow’s air terminal.On the Moscow-Delhi route, we are flying the modern Boeing 777 aircraft which boast all the conceivable amenities. Passengers can also make inflight phone calls. We are also inducting state-of-the-art Boeing 767 aircraft. business class passengers.