Aeroflot holidays soaraway success

Aeroflot, the Russian national airline, has introduced an additional weekly flight between Hong Kong and Moscow to cope with passenger demand and package holidays that are selling for as little as $7,000.

The carrier began flying to Hong Kong two years ago with two flights a week. But with between 1,500 and 2,000 passengers booking tickets every month, it launched a third weekly flight two months ago.

'The flights are full of tourists from Hong Kong,' Joe Ng Cho-hin, manager of Global Union Express, the Aeroflot agents, said.

'Prices have come down a lot and about 80 per cent of the passengers are local tour groups.' On the Airbus A310s, Moscow is just 101/2 hours away. 'We are definitely the fastest flight to Europe,' Vassili Tkachenko, the carrier's general manager in Hong Kong, said.

He described in-flight service - especially in first class where passengers were served caviar and Russian specialties - as superb.

Return tickets to Moscow cost from around $8,000 for economy to $13,000 for business and between $16,000 and $17,000 for first class.