Mobilization in Russia: flights abroad are fully booked – ticket prices are taking off

Created: 09/22/2022, 09:29 am

By: Patricia Huber

Putin's announcement of the mobilization has led to a great demand for airline tickets.

More and more people seem to want to leave the country.

Moscow – The partial mobilization of Russian reservists announced by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin has led to a rush for plane tickets for foreign flights in Russia.

This also leads to an increase in prices.

Partial mobilization in Russia: Flight prices sometimes increased tenfold

According to booking site Aviasales, popular in Russia, all direct flights to the nearest former Soviet republics of Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan were fully booked on Wednesday.

Turkish Airlines announced that seats for Istanbul, one of the main hubs for flights to and from Russia, would not be available again until Saturday.

According to the Serbian airline, the next AirSerbia flight to Belgrade was only available again on Monday.

The big rush is also affecting airfares.

The cheapest flights to Dubai currently cost 300,000 rubles, which is about 5,000 euros.

It's a little cheaper to go to Turkey for almost 70,000 rubles.

That works out to around 1,156 euros.

For comparison: a week ago you only had to pay the equivalent of 363 euros for a flight to Turkey – so the trip would now cost three times as much.

With an average monthly wage of 600 euros in Russia, these ticket prices should probably only be affordable for the higher earners in the country.

Even domestic flights to border towns were in great demand: plane tickets from Moscow to the city of Vladikavkaz on the border with Georgia cost over 750 dollars (around 759.94 euros) on Wednesday – more than ten times the usual price.

Ukraine war: "Leave Russia" search query has risen sharply

According to the online service Google Trends, the search terms “tickets” and “plane” have been entered twice as often on the Internet as usual since early morning in Russia.

The search query "leave Russia" was 100 times more frequent than on normal days.

The top location for the searches was therefore the border town of Belgorod and its surroundings, which is repeatedly shelled from northeastern Ukraine.

According to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, around 300,000 reservists are to be sent to reinforce the Russian and separatist forces in eastern and southern Ukraine.

According to Schoigu, up to 25 million people could be mobilized.

Fears that Russia could impose martial law had already led to an exodus of tens of thousands of Russians to neighboring countries at the beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine.

Flights to the European Union have not been possible since then.