The largest Russian airlines have cut prices for domestic flights by almost half, reported by TASS with reference to Vedomosti.

The publication compared the cost of the most affordable tickets from Moscow to 15 cities of the Russian Federation with the highest traffic and came to the conclusion that tickets are now tens of percent cheaper than they cost at the beginning of summer.

For example, S7 Airlines has halved the prices for flights to Ufa, by 40% for flights to Krasnodar, Perm, Sochi and Novosibirsk, tickets to other cities have become cheaper by 10-35%. The national carrier Aeroflot has cut prices by 40% in the direction of Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and Krasnodar, by 30% in the direction of Samara, Perm and Irkutsk, the drop in prices in other directions did not exceed 20%. Low-cost airline Pobeda, according to the press service, was selling its tickets two to three times cheaper than the same period last year.

The publication notes that the decline in prices is taking place despite the gradual recovery of air traffic within Russia since the beginning of summer, although in April and May air traffic dropped to 87%. "The depth of booking in all directions is now greatly reduced. <...> Serious restrictions on international flights remain, so Russian airlines are forced to reorient to domestic routes, where there is an excess of capacity and, as a result, price dumping," — said Yuri Spektorov, head of the Moscow office of Bain&Company.

In addition to the restrictions on flights due to the pandemic, the publication notes a general drop in effective demand from the population, the cancellation of business trips and, as a result, the impossibility of a quick recovery of the market.