The Pulkovo-3 Center for Business Aviation experienced a significant increase in traffic last year thanks to the FIFA 2018 World Cup that Russia hosted, according to statistics released last week at the RUBAE 2019 business aviation show. Located inside the fence of the Pulkovo International, the only airport serving St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, the center last year served 4,292 business aviation flights carrying 26,746 passengers. Of those passengers, 6,558 (24.5 percent) were registered between June 14 and July 15, when the football matches took place.

On July 11, the FBO served 262 business jet flights and 1,338 travelers, setting its all-time record. Also on that day, the FBO’s terminal came close to seeing its stated daily capacity of 1,500 passengers.

Sergei Pugin, general director at JetPort SPb, the company that runs the Pulkovo-3, told AIN the FBO still has enough room for further development and improvement without additional investments into the existing infrastructure. That includes a climate-controlled hangar complex with three sections, each measuring 26,910 sq ft/2,500 sq m, enough to house a single ACJ321 or five Challenger 605s. The ramp has capacity for approximately 30 business jets at a time. With the hangars taken into account, Pulkovo-3 can park up to 46 aircraft.

JetPort SPb does not provide exact figures for the earlier period, but some statistics are available from the Russian United Business Aviation Association (RUBAA). It said that in 2014 the traffic via Pulkovo-3 was 7,888 business jet movements (arrivals and departures); 7,191 in 2015; 7,598 in 2016; and “almost 8,000” in 2017. RUBAA did not yet have a figure for 2018.

This year, Russian business aviation is likely to show a negative dynamic, due to the nation's stagnating economy and the absence of traffic-generating events comparable to the FIFA competition. As for Pulkovo-3, it does have such an event: the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2019 held from June 6 to 8 and personally attended by President Putin and his ministers. It urged the business community members to flock into the city, and thus generated 552 business jet flights carrying 1,772 passengers.