LONDON – According to data from RadarBox.com, S7 Airlines is getting close to pre-pandemic recovery on flight movement statistics despite the ongoing Ukraine Crisis.
The airline may be suffering from sanctions and a lack of aircraft parts, but they are going strong when it comes to such statistics.
Without further ado, let’s get into the numbers…
The Numbers…
For October 29-November 5, the airline recorded 306 movements, which is a decrease of 14.04% compared to the same period last year.
However, the airline is only 23 movements short of achieving pre-pandemic numbers, which is still quite a feat despite international airspace bans caused by such sanctions.
Below is the last four weeks’ worth of data for the carrier:
| Date | 2019 Numbers | 2021 Numbers | 2022 Numbers | Percentage Difference (2022 vs. 2021) |
| October 1-8 | 323 movements | 376 movements | 336 movements | -10.64% |
| October 8-15 | 322 movements | 364 movements | 330 movements | -9.34% |
| October 15-22 | 314 movements | 362 movements | 331 movements | -8.56% |
| October 21-29 | 308 movements | 356 movements | 322 movements | -9.55% |
What you can see from the last four weeks’ worth of data is that despite lower numbers than 2021, they are actually performing better than 2019’s numbers, which is quite the anomaly in declining data.
October 29-November 5 is the first week in the last five that they haven’t beaten pre-pandemic movement numbers.
However, being short of pre-pandemic levels for this week does look likely to become a pattern, as around 295 movements are expected for this week based on the seven-day rolling average.
This is 7.52% less than 2021’s numbers but is nearly 30 movements less than the pre-pandemic figure of 323 movements.
Events Affecting S7 During the Ukraine Crisis…
The Ukraine Crisis saw three major announcements regarding S7 Airlines, which has, of course, hindered any form of revenue generation internationally.
The first news came at the start of March when Alaska Airlines announced the suspension of its partnerships with the Russian carrier as well as Aeroflot.
By March 4, the airline then announced the suspension of all international flights due to sanctions not allowing the aircraft into respective airspaces and FIRs, as well as the risk that the aircraft would be repossessed.
Such repossession attempts had been made already, especially with the chaos that emerged in Colombo, Sri Lanka, when an Aeroflot Airbus A330 was grounded due to court orders.
The ban was later lifted, but it most definitely put into perspective the hesitancy of Russian carriers surrounding operating into international destinations.
Finally, the airline was then suspended by the oneworld Alliance in April, which would have reduced the revenue capture of the airline, in alignment with posted sanctions by the West.
Overall…
The main question that needs to be asked here is what the revenue streams are currently like for the airline.
With the airline being able to just about keep up to pre-pandemic levels, if the load factors aren’t that significant, then this won’t equate to a financial recovery.
Also, because of sanctions, making such money is going to be even more difficult for S7 Airlines moving forward.
