OREANDA-NEWS. A landmark event occurred in Moscow Domodedovo Airport – the number of air travellers who has chosen this airport hit 500 million! The airport’s automatic systems recorded the half-a-billionth passenger at 2:05 p.m., Moscow time.

The hero of the day was Mr. Christoph Mardt, a German citizen who took a Moscow/Munich flight with Air Berlin airline. Upon hearing this news, he shared his impressions with the representatives of Mass Media: “I have a joint business with a Russian partner in Russia; I fly to Moscow every two week. That time I was supposed to fly from Moscow to Munich four days ago, but I changed my ticket on May 21. And as it turned out, for a reason – I will never forget this day. It’s a very nice surprise”. Mr. Igor Borisov, Domodedovo Airport Director, congratulated Mr. Christoph Mardt on that event. He handed over to the passenger a celebratory certificate with a good round figure and a coupon for free use of the business lounge.

500,000,000 air travellers is a landmark in the history of Russia’s biggest airport. In terms of passenger traffic Domodedovo Airport keeps leading not only in the Russian Federation but in the whole Eastern Europe. In 2011, that air harbor fell into the category of the largest airports in Europe (with the passenger traffic of over 25 million people per year), and in 2012, more than 28 million tourists travelled via Domodedovo.

500 million include all passengers, since Domodedovo Airport was established (in 1962), and the statistics suggests: the airport opened a new page in its history at the turn of the millennium – from 2000 to 2012, the air traffic has increased by 10 times.

Today Domodedovo Airport services daily more than 70,000 tourists. About 700 take-off and landing operations are taken place during a day, and in the high season, a plane takes off from or lands on one of the two independent runways practically every minute.

The airport offers the broadest flight network to air travellers. Flights from Domodedovo Airport are operated in 237 domestic and foreign destinations, a third of which are unique: journey to 78 cities in Russia and abroad is available only from Domodedovo. Domodedovo Airport surpasses other Russian airports by far in terms of the share of exclusive direct flights in the flight network.

The work of the air harbor gets high marks at the international level and among Russian air travellers. For instance, year 2013 has already brought two prestigious awards to Domodedovo Airport – four times running golden medal by Skytrax in the category of “The best Airport in Eastern Europe” (the winner is determined on the base of detailed user surveys all around the world) and the sixth annual Travel.ru Star (it is awarded to leaders of the voting conducted in a Russian tourist online portal).

Moscow Domodedovo Airport — is the largest one of Russia, in 2012 the airport served 28,2 million people. It joins the category of the largest airports in Europe on the classification of the Airports Council International (ACI) and on results of 2012 became one of three European airports with the highest dynamic development. Since 2009 it is ranked as the best airport in Eastern Europe by Skytrax. Domodedovo is chosen for flights by member airlines of two largest global airline alliances — Star Alliance and oneworld.