Russia’s UTair Airline is expanding domestic and international services from Surgut to 28 destinations this summer. It launched daily Surgut-Tomsk-Krasnoyarsk ATR 72-500 service on May 20. According to UTair, it will add Irkutsk to the route from July 2, ATWonline reported.

The carrier has bases in the Siberian cities of Tyumen and Surgut, as well as Moscow Vnukovo.

“Development of point-to-point routes that connect Siberian cities has good prospects. Without Moscow connections, passengers reduce traveling time significantly,” UTair president-passenger airline Alexey Budnik said.

ATW understands that because of the airline’s network development peculiarities in Russia, most of the country’s regions are better connected with Moscow than among themselves.

Besides the Siberian flights, UTair operates service from Surgut to the southern Russian cities of Anapa, Gelendzhik, Krasnodar and Sochi, as well as to other points such as Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Omsk and Rostov-on-Don.

UTair operates a fleet of 60 aircraft to more than 150 destinations. In 1Q 2016, it carried1.2 million passengers, up 17.8% year-over-year.