FLUG REVUE March 2006: Vnukovo airport sees boom

March 2006

VNUKOVO RACES TO CATCH UP

By Andreas Spaeth

The journey from the Moscow city centre to Vnukovo International Airport (IATA code VKO, ICAO code UUWW), 28 kilometres to the south-west, begins in a splendid, cathedral-like hall at Kievskaya station. Here, passengers of sundry Russian domestic airlines are already able to check in their baggage and get their boarding cards. They then embark on the Airport Express train, which delivers them at Departures in 35 minutes non-stop. The ticket price of around two euros is included in the air ticket. In fact, the spirit of Vnukovo is already manifest in this edifice, with its opulent ornamentation and artistic decoration, which manages to seem ultra-modern at the same time: the plan is to quickly attain a Western standard of quality and service, but without excluding Russian elements.

Vnukovo's fortunes have taken a pronounced turn for the better since the end of 2003, when the Moscow city administration started operating the smallest of the three passenger airports which serve the nine million strong capital of this vast country. Its biggest supporter has been Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, who is well known far beyond the city limits and nurtures ambitions of transforming his city into a world metropolis, to which end he has succeeded in mustering sizeable private and state financial resources. It is not by chance that building work is in progress all over Moscow; in the east of the city, a whole district of skyscrapers is reaching for the skies. Vnukovo is another of the mayor's pet projects – as is the airline Atlant-Soyuz, which is based in this airport and is 25% owned by the city. Atlant-Soyuz has a special Tupolev Tu-154, resplendent in its distinctive paintwork, stationed in Vnukovo and reserved for the mayor's VIP flights.

Vnukovo was the first airport to be built in Moscow and was originally opened on 2 July 1941. Between 1945 and the completion of Sheremetyevo in the north of the city in 1960, Vnukovo enjoyed the status of being Moscow's main airport. During the war, heavy detachments of the air corps and fighter aircraft were stationed here, and on 9 May 1945 Vnukovo experienced a touch of world history at first-hand: it was to this airport that a twin-engined Lisunov Li-2 returned from Berlin bearing the document in which Hitler's Germany agreed to unconditional surrender. Over a decade later, 1956 was a ground-breaking year for aviation, in which the first civilian Russian jet, the Tupolev Tu-104, flew its first passenger flight via Omsk to Irkutsk, dealing a shock to the West: the British Comet I, the first Western passenger jet, had been grounded due to accidents and the American four-engined jets were not yet in-service. 14 April 1961 is another important date in the history of Vnukovo and likewise a milestone in the East-West rivalry: it was in Vnukovo that the first cosmonaut of the world, Yuri Gagarin, landed after his spaceflight on his way back from Baikonur to be feted in the capital city. One can still feel the aura of Soviet history, but it will not stay like that for long.

The splendid old departures building of 1941 is still a landmark with its white-yellow paintwork, but it was recently taken out of service. “There were long discussions, but soon we are going to demolish it,” says Andrei Lebedev, marketing manager of the airport. Right opposite the old building are the escalators from which passengers emerge into the daylight from the brand-new, underground airport station. The past and the future of Moscow aviation face each other square on. A new complex with 120,000 square metres of floorspace is to be erected on the grounds of the historic terminal and is scheduled to open at the end of 2007. It is part of a $1.3 billion expansion programme that will transform Vnukovo by 2015 into a hub capable of handling 22 million passengers per year. Today the airport, which at times appears almost to be asleep, is still a long way off from this goal – but the 50% passenger growth sustained in 2005, which saw passenger volume rise from 2.4 million to 3.5 million, is a clear indication of what lies ahead. Surprisingly, the tradition-steeped airport is already the fourth biggest in Russia after Moscow Domodedovo, Moscow Sheremetyevo and St. Petersburg.

When one considers the size of Moscow's population, the fact that less than 30 million passengers are handled between its three airports suggests that the city has a lot of catching up to do. At the heart of the expansion is the new terminal designed by the Munich planning company, Obermeyer, which is intended to be a symbol of the new Moscow. With shimmering bluish glass, the new terminal will have 20 passenger walkways, something quite new to Vnukovo. Up to now there have been only four piers. Two more are to follow, but today many passengers still walk across the apron to get to their plane.

The expansion plans include lengthening one of the two V-shaped runways (3,000m and 3,060m long) to 3,800m and upgrading the instrument landing system from the present CAT II to CAT III. Of the three Moscow airports, Vnukovo is the highest, 204m above sea level, and hence in case of fog it has frequently served as an alternate airport. Apart from this, the operators like to stress the fact that, due to its geographic position, the flying time for Western airlines is 10 to 20 minutes shorter than to the other Moscow airports, Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo.

The existing taxiways are to be extended as part of the expansion and new ones will also be built, along with a brand new control tower, an extension to the cargo terminal and a multi-storey car park. By 2007 the airport will boast a three star hotel with 400 rooms.

There are also plans for a direct connection to the Moscow underground, which today is still 20 minutes' drive away. This would improve the links with public transport, which today are still far from optimal: an hourly train service runs in both directions between 7am and noon, but then there are no trains at all until 5pm, the last train leaves Kievskaya at 8pm and the last connecting service from the airport leaves at 8:55pm. “From 2006 there will be an hourly service, and later there will be a train every half-hour,” Andrei Lebedev promises.

Normal operations will continue while these improvements are taking place. The prominent international terminal with 25,000 square metres of floorspace over three storeys which is situated not far from the historic complex is therefore of central importance. The check-in area is on the ground floor, while arrivals and transit flights are handled on the second floor and departing passengers proceed to the third floor after check-in.

About 1,200 passengers per day can be handled in this building which was commissioned in April 2004, giving it an annual capacity of 4 million users on its own. “That is the only terminal to have been built from scratch in the last few years in Moscow,” says Andrei Lebedev. After the expansion work is finished, the complex will become the new terminal for domestic connections.

The existing building which dates from the 1960s is the most crowded; here too the check-in desks are on the ground floor, as are arrivals, while departures are one floor up. “People in Moscow still think of Vnukovo as their oldest airport, but it has already changed a lot,” says Andrei Lebedev.

Ever since international flights were moved to Sheremetyevo in 1960, Vnukovo has primarily been an airport for domestic flights and only since 2001 have any foreign destinations being offered. The biggest airline, handling about 23 percent of the total traffic, is UT Air, which is based in Tyumen and operates a fleet of over 40 jets (Tupolev Tu-134's and Tu-154's plus Yak-40's) to more than 30 destinations in the vast expanses of Russia and the other CIS states. In second place, with 18 percent, is the Moscow-based airline Atlant-Soyuz, which primarily operates charter flights to the Crimean and the Mediterranean with a fleet of IL-86's, IL-96's and Tu-154's, but it also offers scheduled flights to CIS destinations. In third place is KMV Kavminvodyavia from Mineralnye Vody, which has a market share of around 10 percent.

Most of the international flights handled at Vnukovo are chartered connections, but since the summer of 2005 Germanwings has been the first west European no-frills airline to operate scheduled flights, although it still accounts for only around three percent of the total traffic. There are three flights a week to Berlin Schoenefeld and Cologne/Bonn, and additional routes are planned from the other Germanwings hubs of Stuttgart and Hamburg.

“We are astounded at how many private passengers fly to Moscow despite the tedious visa application process,” says Germanwings CEO Joachim Klein. To ensure that everything runs smoothly, maintenance personnel at the airport have been given special technical training; previously they had hardly ever set eyes on modern Western jets like the Airbus fleet operated by Germanwings. All this is set to change: the Italian low-fares airline Windjet has announced that it is to introduce three flights a week to Forli, while Air Arabia of Sharjah plans to run a three times weekly service from its hub to Vnukovo as well.

“It is not our primary objective to become a major force in the cheap fares market, that is just a part of our development. Above all, we want to attract the big international airlines,” says marketing director Andrei Lebedev. Here he will be competing above all with Vnukovo's privately operated competitor, Domodedovo, which recently recruited two more big names in Thai Airways and Singapore Airlines. However, that airport which is currently the biggest Moscow airport, is up against its limits, so there could be an opportunity here for its rival.

In the area of Business Aviation, Vnukovo is the undisputed market leader. Staff at the airport are used to dealing with special guests due to the government terminal situated in the south-east of the airport grounds, to which all arriving state visitors are taken and from which President Putin departs on his business trips. Business jet users have a separate, 2,000 square metre terminal available to them, plus generous parking areas. Some 35,000 VIP passengers are handled here per year.

“We have about 600 flights per month in this area, almost 80 percent of all Moscow Business Aviation flights go to Vnukovo”, says Andrei Lebedev. The airport is keen to retain this status and next to the existing business terminal a second, even bigger one, is being built. This will be capable of handling another 40 passengers per hour in full comfort. Additional parking areas and hangars also feature in the expansion programme for this airport, which is licensed for 24-hour operation. Clearly Vnukovo airport has awoken from hibernation.

From page 76 of FLUG REVUE 3/2006

Last updated 10 February 2006

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