The number of passengers carried on Russian-made An-148 regional jets has exceeded 207 thousands, according to GTK Rossiya.

Today, six An-148s assembled by VASO factory in Voronezh are in service with GTK Rossiya. As of this time, the St. Petersburg based carrier is the only Russian operator of the type. Ukraine’s Aerosvit operates two Ukrainian-built An-148s and one more aircraft belongs to Antonov design house.
On 21 December 2010 GTK Rossiya celebrated a whole year since revenue flights started. In the whole year of operations the airline performed 1,875 scheduled flights in the central timetable to 26 destinations.

In December 2009, when revenue services commenced, GTK Rossiya carried roughly a thousand passengers. In the whole of the past year the airline added 192,000 more. This month of January 2011 the An-148 fleet carried 14 thousand passengers. With that, the total number has come to 207 thousand passengers.

The average monthly utilization rate has increased up to 270 flight hours a month per a serviceable airframe. This compares to 150-160 flights hours a month for the RA-61701 when it entered service a year ago.

IFC general director Alexander Rubtsov says the target for this year is to increase the monthly utilization rate up to 330 flight hours per airframe.