Travel service Tutu.ru found out whether users are buying plane tickets with transfers to Georgia and how demand for this route has changed in general since today. Let us recall that since July 8, 2019, Russian and Georgian airlines have been banned from flying from Russia to Georgia.
According to the service, direct tickets accounted for the majority of all tickets on the Moscow-Tbilisi route. In June of this year, the share of tickets with transfers on the Moscow-Tbilisi route was approximately 1.5%. The same picture was observed in 2018. In July 2019, tickets with transfers already accounted for about 8–9%, while last year this figure did not exceed 2%.
As the company's press service told the TRN portal, at the moment the demand for Georgia from Russian cities is low: tickets for departure dates after July 8 are practically not being purchased, even despite the fact that Georgian Airlines has not stopped selling flights via Yerevan, and the prices for tickets with transfers are quite reasonable.
The share of tickets to Georgia from all flights to neighboring countries in June and July is lower than last year. However, the sharp negative impact on Georgia's position is still not noticeable in the overall statistics of Tutu.ru. Georgia remains among the leaders of the rating at the beginning of July and occupies the fifth position in the list of the most popular routes to neighboring countries.
In the last days of June (after June 22), the level of sales to Georgia decreased by half, given that tickets were bought mainly for dates with departure before July 8. It is very likely that after July 8, sales to Tbilisi will fall.
Let us recall that earlier Tutu.ru experts analyzed search queries from all Russian cities for air tickets to Georgia after June 21 and found out the minimum prices for direct and connecting air tickets from July 8 + - 7 days. According to the results of the study, it turned out that the average price of the cheapest direct flight from July 1 to 7 is 7,079 rubles, and a connecting flight is 9,462 rubles. Thus, the average bill to Georgia increased by a third (by 34%).
Source: trn-news.ru
