Coral Travel canceled flights to Rhodes from St. Petersburg

Coral Travel canceled the flight program to Rhodes from St. Petersburg From 05.07.2019 (the company had previously canceled flights from Rostov-on-Don). According to travel agents, tourists are not satisfied with the proposed alternatives - departures from Moscow or only ground service without air ticket compensation. The tour operator explained the cancellation of flights by low loading of boards. 

As the general director of Capricorn travel agency Larisa Lomako said, the decision of Coral Travel is expectative - Rhodes always had a low loading from St. Petersburg: “On the whole, transportation volume to Greece is sufficient, nothing is “burning”. There are a lot of flights to Thessaloniki and Crete, because they are more known, Rhodes is always beyond them. My clients prefer Athens instead of Rhodes.” 

According to experts, the specificity of the region plays its own role here. “Peter (St. Petersburg) is a difficult city for tour operators. In the past there were many attempts to open Rhodes from there. We tried to do it too, but there were no results. Tourists wait the last minute tours, because the majority of St. Petersburg people have a Finnish Schengen and they are used to buy tour packages at the last moment,” Anatoly Garkushin, CEO of tour operator Pantheon said. The expert added that the situation is different in Moscow, where Rhodes is actively being sold both on charter and on the regular flights. 

The head of the Greek Tea Tour, Dimitris Charitidis, confirmed that in Moscow the demand for Rhodes, on the contrary, had increased. The expert stressed that despite such adjustments, there is little “burning” on the destination - there are last minute sales, but within normal limits. “Hotels constantly provide special offers. The fact is that the Western market has decreased due to summer heat and many tourists have decided not to go on vacation, especially the Germans and Scandinavians,” Charitidis said. 

It should be noted that Aegean Airlines operates flights from St. Petersburg to Rhodes and tourists can fly to the Greek island three times a week.