Ural Airlines has already sold five times more tickets as of July 1, 2007 against July 2006. The carrier’s press officer reports 5% of their customers prefer online booking at the moment, which is one of the highest figures among Russian airlines.

Sochi and Moscow have always been the most popular destinations for the company’s clients, so these destinations are also the ones most often booked online. The recent increase in e-sales can be explained by matters of convenience, appealing tariffs, and absence of fuel fees for some destinations. E-booking is mainly used by people who are accustomed to surf the Internet and make e-payments on regular basis. The service is popular with VISA and MasterCard holders and frequent fliers as well.

'We’ve managed to attract a great number of new customers thanks to online booking becoming so easily accessible: a passenger can book a ticket and pay for it virtually anywhere on the globe,’ Ural Airlines’ Deputy Commercial Director Dmitriy Lvov said to a UrBC reporter.

Some experts believe the upcoming improvements in Russian legislation on e-booking are going to make it possible to gradually give up paper tickets altogether.