Railroad operator Aeroexpress transported 17.4 million passengers in 2012, the company said. The number includes transportation of passengers in Moscow, Sochi and Vladivostok and on its suburban route to Lobnya, in the Moscow region.
The total passenger turnover is up 24 percent over the 2011 figure of 14.04 million passengers, Interfax reported.
Aeroexpress carried 14.9 million passengers to and from Moscow airports, an increase of 20.4 percent year on year. On its Domodedovo route, the number of passengers increased 17.3 percent to 7 million; on the Sheremetyevo route, the numbers increased 24.4 percent to 5.7 million; and for Vnukovo, there was a 20.2 percent increase to 2.1 million.
In Sochi and Vladivostok, where the company began services in 2012, Aeroexpress carried, respectively, 143,000 (from Feb. 15 to Dec. 31, 2012) and 210,000 (from July 20 to Dec. 31, 2012. In Sochi, the trains make 10 trips per day, making one stop at Adler Station; in Vladivostok, they make three stops.
In Moscow, on the Savyolovsky Station-Dolgoprudny-Lobnya route, passenger turnover climbed 28.8 percent in 2012 to 2.17 million.
Aeroexpress is a joint venture of Russian Railways and TransGroup, which owns 50 percent of the firm, as well as businessmen Iskander Makhmudov and Andrei Bokarev, each of whom owns 25 percent.
Aeroexpress plans to start service in Kazan in the first quarter of 2013. Kazan is hosting the summer Universiade.
