KD Avia to develop Russia's European hub at Kaliningrad

The dynamic Russian airline, KD Avia, has further developed its hub and spoke operation at Kaliningrad Airport with easy connections from a dozen European cities to 10 major Russian destinations, each with populations over 1 Million.

Using 12 Boeing 737-300 aircraft on all routes, services are flown three times weekly from London Gatwick on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday with easy connections and checked through baggage to Moscow, St Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Ufa, Volgograd, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk, Omsk and Kazan.

With flexible pricing and online booking, plus short waiting times at Kaliningrad made possible by two waves of morning and afternoon arrivals and departures, KD avia is able to offer a convenient alternative to Moscow or St Petersburg as intermediate transit points for air travel to the many Russian regional capitals.

Mikhail Baskov, KD avia's Commercial Planning Director, said "By using Kaliningrad as a hub, both passenger and cargo traffic will be able to avoid these bottlenecks, benefiting from reduced costs, decreased travel time and greater flexibility."

During June 2007 a new 30,000 sq feet air terminal was opened at Kaliningrad's Khrabrovo Airport which will easily handle 3 Million projected passengers. With further development work already underway this capacity will be increased to 8 Million by 2008.

KD avia's passenger business has grown significantly in the last 18 months with passenger numbers increasing to a total of 584,000 during 2006. This is projected to increase to over 2 Million in 2008. These plans include an increase in frequency from London Gatwick to Kaliningrad from the three times per week launched in June 2007 to a daily service.

Loreta Durell, KD avia's new UK Sales Manager, said: " We have experienced a phenomenal response in our first few weeks of flying with support coming from both the large Russian community based in London and the UK business travel agents. The Kaliningrad area has some of the best beaches on the Baltic Coast, so we're looking towards UK Tour Operators to boost our traffic even further for Summer 2008."

Reservations can be made online at Kdavia.eu or Kdavia.co.uk.