In March 2018, Aeroflot Group carried 3.9 million passengers, up 7.6% year-on-year. Aeroflot airline carried 2.7 million passengers, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%.
Group and Company RPKs were up 7.5% and 5.3% year-on-year, respectively. ASKs rose by 7.1% for Aeroflot Group and by 6.9% for Aeroflot airline.
On domestic routes, Group passengers carried and RPKs grew by 6.7% and 7.7% year-on-year, respectively. ASKs grew by 5.2% year-on-year. Company passengers carried and RPKs increased by 6.9% and 4.8% year-on-year, respectively. ASKs grew by 5.9%. The passenger load factor on domestic routes increased by 1.9 p.p. year-on-year to 80.3% for Aeroflot Group and decreased by 0.8 p.p. year-on-year to 79.6% for Aeroflot airline.
In March 2018, the number of passengers carried on the Group¡¯s international routes increased by 8.8% year-on-year. RPKs grew by 7.4%, while capacity grew by 8.4%. The number of passengers carried by Aeroflot airline on international routes increased by 6.1%. RPKs grew by 5.6%, ASKs by 7.4%. The passenger load factor on international routes decreased by 0.7 p.p. year-on-year to 79.8% for Aeroflot Group and by 1.3 p.p. to 77.8% for Aeroflot airline.
The passenger load factor in the international segment decreased due to increased flight frequencies, primarily on European and US routes. In addition, the significant increase in the passenger load factor in March 2017 driven by appreciation of the rouble created a high base factor, leading to a non-material normalisation of this indicator in the March 2018 reporting period. (In March 2017, the passenger load factor increased by 3.8 p.p. year-on-year for the Group and by 2.2 p.p. year-on-year for the Company).