February 19, 2015. The turnover of goods at Yekaterinburg’s Koltsovo Airport’s customs points declined by 20% this year compared with the beginning of 2014, the Customs’ head Sergey Abrosimov announced at a press conference.

He added the international passenger traffic shrank even more drastically, by as much as 35%.
‘Nevertheless, we expect the passenger traffic figures to recover by the middle of the year, primarily thanks to travelers going on their vacations, as migrant workers have remained a considerable part of the overall international passenger statistics,’ he pointed out.

As for last year, according to the data Abrosimov quoted, the airport’s passenger turnover did not increase compared with the previous years for the first time in a long time. The only observable growth was in the first half of the year, while the second half was characterized by a dropping number of operated flights. For one, the number of flights operated to the United Arab Emirates decreased from 424 in the first half of 2014 down to 318 in the second half of the year; the number of Turkey-bound flights went down from 398 to 202.

At the same time, the freight turnover remained the same last year as in 2013.