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Russia’s Ural Airlines will start direct flights to Delhi next week, as it seeks to benefit from a spurt in business travel and tourism between the two countries. The flights will operate from Ural Airlines’ base, Koltsovo Airport in Yekaterinburg, to New Delhi three days a week, on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, with the service starting on October 25.
Ural Airlines said that “the decision to launch regular flights was driven by both commercial and strategic reasons. There is strong demand and the availability of a suitable fleet of Airbus aircraft.”
Yekaterinburg is the largest transport and industrial hub in the Urals. Direct flights from the city will significantly slash travel time from the Urals and Siberia. India opened a consulate in Yekaterinburg in November last year after identifying it as a commercial hub for Indian investments into Russia.
Yekaterinburg is the capital of Russia’s Sverdlovsk Oblast and serves as a major industrial hub focusing on metallurgy, heavy engineering, mechanical engineering, defense manufacturing, and nuclear fuel. It is Russia’s fourth largest city. Industrial enterprises in the Sverdlovsk region have actively sought specialized Indian workforce talent and technological expertise in machinery and electronics to address regional manufacturing demands. Regular engagements are supported through the Ural Chamber of Commerce and Industry and business delegations between Sverdlovsk Oblast and Indian commercial partners, alongside academic and scientific exchanges via Ural Federal University. Yekaterinburg regularly hosts international industrial exhibitions like INNOPROM and where India has previously participated as a partner country to drive bilateral industrial project discussions.
Number Of Russia-India Direct Flights Set To Increase From 15 To 71
The Russian ambassador to India, Denis Alipov, recently said that the number of weekly airline services to India could soon jump from the current 15 to 71, saying that “Siberian Airlines (S7) and Ural Airlines are actively working on the possibility of launching regular flights to Delhi from Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg. We are awaiting a response from our Indian partners.”
To put that into context, there are currently 309 direct flights a week between Russia and China.
Russia’s S7 Airlines has previously said it is planning to launch a service between Novosibirsk and New Delhi during the autumn-winter schedule. Tolmachevo Airport in Novosibirsk is a key hub for S7. Officials in Tatarstan have also stated they are in talks with the East-West Group and Russian authorities about launching direct flights to India, including to its financial hub, Mumbai.
India and Russia are similarly boosting ties in the civil aviation sector. Two Indian domestic airlines have signed agreements on buying 85 Russian passenger aircraft, as Moscow and New Delhi move to expand cooperation in civil aviation and manufacturing.
The new services come amid an expected surge in activity in various sectors, including tourism, pharmaceuticals, agriculture and food processing, information technology, engineering, and transport and logistics. India and Russia expect bilateral trade to hit US$100 billion by 2030.
