Zhukovsky Airport (IATA: ZIA), opened in September 2016, is the newest, smallest, and dirtiest of Moscow's aviation hubs. The terminal building is a pristine glass building decorated with the cheapest materials on the construction market, and the only place to eat is at the Chocolate Girl cafe. From Kazansky train station, transfer to a shuttle bus (fare 100 rubles) to the train station. To take a break, take the direct bus #441e from Kazansky station (fare 85 rubles, less than 70 rubles with discount with card "Arrow").7 Kotelniki (two buses per hour, more frequent during the day on weekdays).
The Ramenskoye airfield is used for test flights of experimental aviation and is controlled by the LII, aircraft of the Russian Emergencies Ministry fly from the airfield, before the opening of Zhukovsky airport, it was also used for international cargo air transportation. Radio call sign of the airfield: Proud. The aerodrome hosts the International Aviation and Space Salon (MAKS) in odd years, and in 2010, 2012, 2014 the International Forum "Engineering Technologies" was held.
Initially, the future airport was to be called Ramenskoye. This was due to its location on the Ramenskoye airfield. The prerequisite for the subsequent renaming appeared in 2007, when the administration of the city of Zhukovsky, where the airport is located, launched an initiative to change the name, but it was not implemented at that time. The issue of renaming surfaced again when the airport was opened, and the project name "Ramport" was used during construction; in May 2016, the airport was granted the international code ZIA (Zhukovsky International Airport) by IATA and officially opened; on November 11, 2017, by order of the Russian Federal Government, the name Zhukovsky was officially assigned to the airport. At the same time, in the State Register of Civil Aviation Aerodromes and Heliports of the Russian Federation, the LII airfield still has the name Ramenskoye.
Traditionally, the airfield was used by TsAGI and LII for test and
research flights and various aeronautical design bureau operations; in
2012, it became clear that Lamenskoye Airfield could be expanded for use
as a commercial airfield for cargo and charter passenger flights. The
airfield was included in a project to modernize the airspace structure
and air traffic control. The Russian Ministry of Transport, the Moscow
Oblast Government, and Russian Railways were instructed to solve the
problem of adding a platform at the Otodiv station (on the Dzhukovsky
border) in 2012-2013. The construction of a civilian airport at
Ramenskoye airfield was supposed to relieve other Moscow airports that
were believed to be overloaded with Northern Delivery projects and
passengers, especially due to delays in commissioning the new runway.
According to some experts, the airport cannot handle more than 13
million passengers per year.
In June 2014, the Rostec State
Corporation approved the Lamenskoye International Airport project as an
investor. The project is being developed by the Lithuanian-Russian
company Lamport Aero, a joint venture between Avia Solution Group
Holding and TVK Rossiya, a subsidiary of Rostec; since summer 2015, the
low-cost airline, which ceased operations due to Western sanctions It
was envisaged that Dobrolyoto would use the airfield, which was to
create 280 high-wage jobs by the end of 2015, with the number of
employees reaching 2.5 thousand in 2016 and more than 10,000 qualified
jobs by 2019.
The first phase of the airport was scheduled to
open on March 15-16, 2016, and from that moment the airport would switch
to 24-hour operation. The first commercial flights were to be operated
by iFly. However, the opening was later postponed until May because the
airport operator could not find an airline that could prepare flights
from Ramenskoye in a timely manner, and because there was no Russian
Federation government decree allowing international flights from the
airport.
By Order No. 432-r of the Government of the Russian
Federation dated March 15, 2016, Ramenskoye Airport was opened for
international flights, and an official opening ceremony was held on May
30, 2016, attended by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
The
airport was created within the framework of the "Single Aviation Center
for Experimental, National, and Civil Aviation" and was supposed to
attract, among other things, additional investments for the further
development of this center in the field of experimental aviation.
However, in March 2019, JSC Ramport Aero, the operator of Zhukovsky
Airport, filed a 162.6 million ruble claim brought by the owner of the
airfield, Ramenskoye JSC, Flight Research Institute named after M. M.
Gromov The company was named as a defendant in the
According to the International Airport Development Project, the
project planned to build two passenger terminals with annual capacity of
2 and 5 million passengers, a 250-room hotel, an office building, an
open parking lot with capacity for 1,240 cars and a covered parking lot
with capacity for 7,426 cars, and an Aero Express station through 2019
The first phase of the new airport in 2016 was expected to serve 1.7
million passengers and increase passenger traffic to 10.8 million by
2020.
In 2015, the construction of the first passenger terminal
with an area of 17.6 thousand square meters took place and the current
infrastructure of the Lamenskoye airfield was adapted for civil
aviation. The annual passenger traffic of Terminal 1 will reach 2
million passengers. Investments in the first phase of the airport
project amounted to more than 1.5 billion rubles ($27 million).
Including the construction of the second and third phases of the second
passenger terminal, a total of approximately 13 billion rubles was
planned to be invested over a five-year period to build more than
240,000 square meters of airport infrastructure. Upon completion of all
development stages, the total area of the terminal will be 60,000 square
meters and its throughput will increase to 12 million passengers per
year.
Since the airspace of Dzhukovsky Airport will intersect
with that of Domodedovo Airport, passenger traffic will increase
12-fold.
Project development also includes significant
improvements to the region's transportation infrastructure. However,
residents of Zhukovsky fear that the development of the airport will
worsen traffic conditions due to increased automobile traffic in the
city and reduce residents' living comfort due to aircraft noise during
the airport's 24-hour operation.
In October 2018, Avia Solutions
Group (ASG) sold its stake in the airport operator to Lamport Aero
Management.
The first airline to announce scheduled service after the
restructuring of the air complex was Air Kyrgyzstan; on June 20, 2016,
the airline conducted a test flight and was scheduled to begin scheduled
service from Zhukovsky to Bishkek and Osh on July 1, 2016. However, at
the last minute, the Russian Federal Ministry of Transport removed
Zhukovsky from the list of airports in the Moscow Air Hub (MAU), which
contradicted the airline's plans, forcing the airline to enter into a
new domestic competition to allocate the number of flights to new
locations, which Air Kyrgyzstan will Air Kyrgyzstan ceded this number of
flights to another Kyrgyz airline, Air Manas.
Kazakhstan's
airline SCAT announced plans to offer scheduled passenger service to
Shymkent, Aktobe, Aktau, and Astana in the near future.
According
to the orders of the Federal Air Transport Agency dated July 27, August
22, and August 26, 2016, VIM-Avia, Nordavia, Ural Airlines, and Yamal
will operate from Zhukovsky Airport to Aktau, Alma-Ata, Antalya, Vienna,
Ganja, Baku, Burgas, Tbilisi, Bishkek, Astana, Budapest, Dushanbe,
Larnaca, Munich, Osh, Beijing, Plovdiv, Prague, Tel Aviv, Frankfurt am
Main, and Fujand.
A short time later, airport manager Lamport
Aero announced that daily flights on the Minsk - Hukovsky route by
Belavia Airlines would begin on September 12, 2016. The flight from
Minsk on the above date was the first scheduled flight accepted by
Zhukovsky International Airport.
In 2016, the airport was
certified for international passenger transport, and at the same time
the first passenger terminal with an area of 17,000 m2 was built.
Compared to the main airports of the Moscow Aviation Hub, the airport
handles a relatively small number of passengers per year (1 million),
but its throughput is much higher. The flight schedule includes only a
few scheduled flights to CIS countries and Russian cities. During the
tourist season, charter flights are operated from here to popular
seaside resorts abroad.
Plans include the construction of a
second terminal with a VIP lounge, hotel, multi-story parking garage,
office building, and shopping and entertainment center.
The Federal Air Transport Administration classifies Zhukovsky as a regional airport, which gives it the right to unrestricted number of airlines for international flights. Such restrictions apply to all other airports in Moscow in the form of requiring the same number of flights for Russian and foreign airlines. The opening of Ural Airlines' new route from Moscow to Paris was accompanied by a scandal: the first flight on April 28, 2019, was conducted with an intermediate stop at Kaluga, which made the flight several hours longer, delayed some passengers on connecting flights, and promised to sue the company for fraud. According to a representative of Ural Airlines, French aviation authorities did not grant permission for a direct flight because they consider Zhukovsky to be a Moscow airport. The controversy has been a point of contention between Russian and foreign aviation authorities previously, including those in Tajikistan and Israel.
As part of the reconstruction, a new Terminal 1 was constructed by 2016. In addition to the terminal, future plans call for the construction of an international cargo terminal, an aircraft maintenance center, two multi-story parking garages, a hotel, two office centers, a shopping and entertainment center, and many other commercial facilities.
Currently, Zhukovsky Airport is in the first phase of development.
The first phase includes the development of the current
infrastructure of the Ramenskoye airfield and the construction of a
passenger terminal with an area of 17,000 square meters. The terminal
will have an annual throughput capacity of 4 million passengers. Phase I
will also include the construction of short- and long-term parking
facilities.
Phases 2 and 3 will include a significant expansion of
passenger terminal 1 and the construction of a second passenger
terminal. After successful completion of all development phases, the
total area of the terminal will be 60,000 square meters and the annual
passenger volume will increase to 12 million passengers.
The airport uses Runway LII, the MM. Gromov runway, which can
accommodate all types of aircraft, including Airbus A380s, without any
takeoff weight restrictions.
The main runway 12/30 with a length
of 5.4 km is the longest in Europe as well as in Russia, and the third
longest in the world. Runway 08/26 is awaiting reconstruction and is
currently used as a taxiing and parking strip for some aircraft.
The airport will also be equipped with bioacoustic equipment and a
propane cannon to scare away birds.