11/08/2019 16:44

Yekaterinburg received more of Europe

[IMG=18695-4276] From the 27th of December the Hungarian air company Malev resumes its regular weekly flights ‘Yekaterinburg-Budapest’, interrupted in September 2004. As Marianna Gaagura, sales representative of Malev airline company in Yekaterinburg, informed BANKO, the airline company will carry out 4 New Year flights (until 17.01) by Boeing-737-800, it will continue the program from March by a smaller Boeing-737-600. The Austrian airline company also announced its plans for the Ural region. According to the data from traveldailynews.com, from summer 2006 the carrier is planning to launch regular flights to Vienna. For the moment there are no alternatives to these offers in Yekaterinburg (among European routes of ‘Ural airlines’ there are only Paris, Prague, Munich (regular), Lufthansa makes flights to Frankfurt, British Airways – to London). In spite of this, experts differ in their opinions concerning the initiative of foreign carriers. ‘In our region, mainstream destinations are those related to beach tourism’, believes Maxim Puzankov, general director of ‘More travel’. According to him, a flight to Budapest even from Saint Petersburg is sold with difficulties; there is a similar situation with flights of ‘Ural airline companies’ to European capitals. Besides, it is still unknown in Yekaterinburg what prices the carriers announce. Sergey Buzko, general director of ‘World’ company, opposes him by welcoming the decisions of both airline companies: ‘New flights will allow combining routes in Europe, which is 30-40% of market interest in Yekaterinburg.’ The activity of Malev and Austrian might be influenced by the recently-opened in Yekaterinburg Hungarian trade promotion office, which will consult people on visa issues, as well as German general Consulate which plans to issue visas to Germany from February 2006. It is curious, that it is not the first attempt of Malev to establish itself in the Ural region: in 1997 and 1998 the carrier was making charter flights, in summer 2004 – regular. In the first case, the company had to leave after the August crises of 1998 which made flights non-profitable. In the second case, the negative effect was caused by the visa factor: there is no Hungarian Consulate in Yekaterinburg. At the same time, there is an opinion that the Malev Company was forced to leave by its internal difficulties and it is not excluded that this time the attempt will be successful.