Previous Story
Vladivostok Air passengers to stay 10-21 days
|
Posted on Dec 26 2008
Like their compatriots last year, passengers of Vladivostok Air’s charter flight this coming Dec. 28 will have an extended stay in the CNMI.
Vladivostok Air Japan manager Roman Grigoriez said passengers of the first of three charter flights from the former Soviet Union will remain on the islands until Jan. 7 and Jan. 18, which incidentally are the arrival dates of the other two charter flights.
He said the type of aircraft that will be used in the three flights are Russian-built Tupolev TU204-300 with capacity of eight business class and 132 economy class seats—bringing the total maximum capacity of passengers to 140 each flight, not 166 as earlier reported.
Grigoriez said he has no knowledge yet on how many passengers will be in each of the three flights.
“Number of passengers we are not sure yet, since passengers are still booking. [But] first flight [is] almost full. On board will be different people, families, etc.,” he said.
Vladivostok Air and fellow Russian carrier DalAvia flew special charter flights to the CNMI in the waning days of 2007, which exemplied the islands’ growing appeal to the market.
Fiscal year to date number indicate that the Russian tourism market is up 86 percent from the same period year ago: 449 in October-November 2008 to 836 in the same period in fiscal year 2009. Just last month, 456 visitors from the former Soviet Union arrived in the CNMI, compared to 261 in November 2007.
The CNMI, three hours travel from most cities in Japan, is served from Japan by Northwest Airlines. From Korea, Asiana Airlines provides daily direct flights from Seoul and four times a week from Busan.
Vladivostok Air, founded in 1932, is now the largest air carrier in Russia’s Far East. It carries over 700,000 passengers annually and provide flight service to 32 domestic destinations as well as 12 international destinations.
The carrier’s domestic service includes Vladivostok, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Irkutsk, Sakhalin, Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky, Yekaterinburg, Magadan, Sochi, Kemerovo, Krasnodar, Yakutsk among others. International flights include: Anchorage, Osaka, Niigata, Toyama, Kitakyushu, Seoul, Busan, Beijing, Harbin, Bangkok, Hanoi, and Frankfurt.
