Pulkovo International Airport, the air transport gateway to St Petersburg, was recognised for its network planning initiatives during this year’s Routes CIS and awarded the Airport Marketing Award for the ‘Over Four Million Passengers’ category. This followed its selection as the overall winner at last year’s awards in Ekaterinburg, Russia and highlights how well regarded it is with its airline partners.

Last year’s award was based on its tremendous success in 2011 when it recorded a 13.8 per cent growth in passenger traffic and attracted seven new carriers including a signature route launched by Emirates Airline in November that year. This network growth continued in 2012 with demand growing by 16 per cent and six new carriers entering the St Petersburg market, including Aegean Airlines, Air One, Air Onix and Blue Panorama Airlines.

This year it has already attracted seven new carriers, including Ukrainian duo Ukraine International Airlines, and UTair Ukraine and Spanish low-cost entity Iberia Express. “We have also seen Icelandair launch operations to St Petersburg from its Keflavik International hub as its first destination in Russia,” Olga Vlasova, Head of Aviation Marketing, St Petersburg International Pulkovo Airport told The HUB on the sidelines of this year’s Routes CIS forum in Donetsk, Ukraine.

The new Icelandair link goes a long way to supporting the airport’s drive to bring direct connectivity to North America with transfer connections to a number of destinations across Canada and the US. “We are targeting New York,” said Vlasova, “a market where there is a strong demand for O&D traffic and onward transfer connection options. We have a developing relationship with Delta Air Lines and are also looking to talks with United too.”

Away from the Transatlantic market, Pulkovo Airport is mainly focusing its efforts on the leisure market, a sector that is showing tremendous growth with annual numbers up around a third. “We hope to be able to introduce additional capacity to key markets such as Spain and Turkey but also into new locations including destinations across Asia, for example Vietnam,” said Vlasova. These flights would likely be operated by a Russian charter carrier like Nordwind Airlines and would operate as fully inclusive tourism packages, added Vlasova.

The arrival of European low-cost carrier easyJet in the Russian market this year with links to Moscow Domodedovo from London Gatwick and Manchester has brought widespread speculation that the carrier to expand into other markets in Russia and parts of the CIS, with Georgia and Ukraine thought to be high on its list. Pulkovo Airport recently confirmed that “there is a good possibility” easyJet could launch flights to St Petersburg.

“We have been talking about Manchester and Geneva as it has route designations and rights from these markets but Swiss has recently confirmed a Geneva link so we are now looking at the possibility of Basel instead,” said Vlasova. However, she warned that current infrastructure work at the airport may delay any route launch beyond summer 2014. “We need to make sure we can offer a service that meets the carrier’s operational model,” she added.