OREANDA-NEWS. January 25, 2008. Suppliers more than triple jet fuel prices for airlines Suppliers of aviation fuel have hiked prices more than threefold, UTAIR's press service reports. The sharp increase took effect in November-December 2007, when refuelling companies raised prices by 33-35 percent. "The consequences of such an increase could have an extremely negative effect on the passenger transportation market," UTair General Director Andrei Martirosov noted. "However, we hope that the increase in household incomes will be adequate to the rise in jet fuel costs, and the situation on the market will not lead to a slide in passenger traffic for Russian airlines."

According to UTair’s business plan, its airplanes and helicopters will spend over 240,000 hours in the air in 2008, a 20-percent increase from a year earlier. The company anticipates to carry more than 4m passengers (34 percent more than in 2007), as well as introduce nineteen new routes. Helicopter operations will be held in Russia and eleven more countries.