PRESS: US airline Delta cancels direct flights to Moscow

MOSCOW, Mar 6 (PRIME) -- U.S. airline Delta will not resume direct flights to Moscow from largest U.S. cities in the upcoming summer timetable, Kommersant business daily reported on Tuesday quoting the airline’s press service.

“Detla continues analysis of its route network, and made this difficult decision,” the business daily said, adding that Russian passengers will be able to fly to the U.S. with connection flights through Paris and Amsterdam under code sharing agreements with air carriers Air France and KLM.

Delta and Russian national air carrier Aeroflot will keep their partnership under the SkyTeam alliance and the companies are studying new prospects for cooperation, a Delta representative said as cited by Kommersant.

Delta significantly reduced the number of flights to Moscow in late 2015 due to a plunge of passenger traffic to third countries from Russia because of a crisis in the country’s economy. Still the company has repeatedly restarted flights in the high summer season.

An Aeroflot source told Kommersant that the passenger traffic from Russia to the U.S. grew 4% on the year in 2017, and that the carrier plans to raise flight capacities on routes to the U.S. in the summer. Suspension of Delta’s flights will have no impact on tariffs of Aeroflot, the business daily said.

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