Kazan airport: there are no tours to Turkey, but flights to Antalya and Dalaman are declared
Despite anti-Turkey sanctions, in the summer schedule of the Kazan airport there are three new flights to the resort area of the forbidden country
The international airport 'Kazan' starts the summer schedule: traditionally, the frequency of flights to the Crimea and Sochi increases, the geography of transportation in Russia enlarges, and instead of Egypt (the return of the latter after the capture of the plane in Cyprus on 29 March is doubtful) there will be international flights to Prague, Barcelona and Greece. The schedule also includes flights to Antalya and Dalaman, but whether these flights will take place remains unknown.
The Czech Republic, more of Greece and Asia, but without Egypt and Israel
The summer schedule of the Kazan airport took effect from 29 March and is until 29 October. According to the press-service of the Kazan airport, the main event of the season will be the Czech carrier Czech Airlines coming to Kazan, which starts flights to Prague on 28 April. Flights from Kazan will be on Mondays and Thursdays, by Airbus A320.
There are still few direct flights from Kazan to Europe: in late April, Finnair resumes flights to Helsinki, suspended for the wintertime. The flights will be three times a week by Embraer-190 aircraft. The replacement of Turkey and Egypt, judging by the schedule, can be Greece: there will be three airlines — Nord Wind, Ellinair and Azur Air (Katekavia) – to Heraklion.
Besides, Azur Air is planning to start transports to Barcelona and to carry out several flights in Cam Ranh (Vietnam). Ural Airlines starts the promised flight Kazan — Bourgas (Bulgaria), Pegas Fly scheduled flights in the first half of the summer to Southeast Asia — Bangkok, Phuket and U-Tapao, said in the press release from the airport.
Besides, among international destinations there are regular flights to Baku of Azerbaijan Airlines. There will be weekly flights to Thessaloniki by Ellinair, traditional flight to Dubai by FlyDubai, whose plane recently crashed in Rostov-on-Don. There will be flights to Dushanbe and Khujand (Uzbekistan) – the flights of Ural Airlines and Tajik Somon Air, to Samarkand, Tashkent and Fergana — by Uzbekistan Airways, as well as charter flights to other popular tourist destinations.
But the expected resumption of flights with Egypt did not happen. The last terrorist attack with the capture of the passenger liner that took off in the Egyptian airport will be another argument of the opponents of resumption of flights in this country. The Federation Council has already declared that the resumption of flights to Egypt is out of the question. Also, there are no flights to Israel from Nord Wind, where the company had got a permission to from the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya).
Will there be a holiday in Turkey?
But the main news is new flights to Turkey. Now, in the winter schedule of the airport there are regular flights to Istanbul from Turkish Airlines. In mid-March, Rosaviatsiya also issued a permit to Ural Airlines on international flights from Kazan to Turkey. However, the next day the head of the Agency Aleksander Neradko said that the permission was granted 'for the future'.
However, now, according to the airport website, there are new flights to tourist centers — Antalya and Dalaman. From 20 May, that is, from the beginning of the tourist season, there should be daily flights of OnurAir to Antalya. However, it was reported that the decision has not been agreed and now the airline is working out the issue with Russian government agencies. A few words should be said about OnurAir. Several years ago it already had flights from Kazan. People started to talk about it after the crash of passenger plane of Kogalymavia (Metrojet) over Sinai. As Realnoe Vremya found out, Kogalymavia and OnurAir had common shareholders. By the way, earlier OnurAir resumed flights Nalchik-Istanbul.
Nordwind Airlines will fly to another Turkish town — Dalaman, according to the schedule — from 26 April, two times a week. The company relates to the group of the tour operator Pegas Touristik and traditionally performs charter flights for it (according to the data base Spark, PLC Nord wind 95.1% owned by PLC Pegas). The airline is trying to establish air communication with Turkey not only from Kazan. According to Kommersant-Perm magazine, the flight Perm-Dalaman will appear in the schedule of the international airport Perm. However, the Pegas Touristik company, which owns the airline, said that in the near future they are not planning neither charter or scheduled flights to Turkey.
Apparently, it is talked of regular, not charter flights, as the ban on charter flights to Turkey has started previously. Perhaps, in this way the company decided to offset the loss from the ban of tours sales and to meet the demand for holidays in Turkish resorts. However, how realistic is the implementation of these flights is unclear. The airport information desk confirms new flights to Turkey, however, you can't buy tickets for them using online services Mak or Pegas Touristik yet. Adel Gataullin, a spokesman of the Kazan airport confirmed the flights: 'These flights are scheduled. They start at the end of April.'
More Simferopol, Tyumen and Yekaterinburg
As for domestic destinations, the RusLine airlines continues to fly to Rostov-on-Don within the programme of subsidizing of regional traffic, frequency of flights to Tyumen and Yekaterinburg increases up to three times per week. The number of flights to Simferopol will also increase: Northwind will be added to the existing airlines UVTaero, Rossiya, Red Wings. Thus, it will be possible to fly to Crimea from Kazan almost daily. 'South Russian direction is still in great demand. Unlike last year, in the season of 'Summer 2016' passengers will be able to fly to Sochi any day of the week except Friday,' stated in the message of the airport. Besides, the Komiaviatrans airline opens a new direction to Syktyvkar three times a week, also there will be flights to Tyumen by Yamal Airlines and RusLine.
The only Tatarstan airline UVTaero will continue the winter program of flights to Nizhnevartovsk, Perm, Nizhny Novgorod, Khanty-Mansiysk, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnodar, as well as the transfer programme.
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Azamat Sabirov Director General of AVT company
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Burgas, Prague, Heraklion have been opened, the frequency to Greece has been increased. It's nice that the number of destinations has not decreased, other carriers picked up them. They planned to open to China, but nothing. I wish there would be flights to Yerevan and Tbilisi, it would be great. Or at least there would be a good dock through Baku, because Georgia is in great demand, and not just because of the fact that they have closed Turkey: Georgia itself is not worse. There is Batumi, where you can sunbathe, it's not so big, but it reminds Rimini with a good quay, why not. Tbilisi would handle with one flight in 10 days or a week in summer. Yerevan would too. It would be great if they opened UVT. In general, it would be great if they painted one airplane with 'Visit Tatarstan'.
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Sergey Pasechnik Director General of the shop of trips Companion SP
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Now, of course, it is difficult to predict, the situation is difficult to predict. Large tour operators believe that those who will not fly to Turkey and Egypt, they still need to fly somewhere, and make amendments, for example, they add the island of Rhodes. I think these places will be loaded. The experience with Vietnam can be called positive yet, let's hope that our tourists continued to choose an inexpensive but kind of exotic.
As for the scheduled flights to Turkey, probably, now it will be hard to allow. Although, perhaps, legally there are various schemes, how you can register.
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