Soviet Air-Passenger Transportation Network

Abstract

Soviet air-passenger transportation system reflects the physical, political, and economic conditions under which it operates. Air service from Moscow, the dominant node, differs from service patterns in the United States. Distance, population, and complementarity all explain variations in levels of service in the Soviet Union. HE growth of air-passenger transportation in the Soviet Union has been phenomenal since 1945. Between 1950 and 1987, the number of passengers carried annually within the country increased almost eightyfold, and the volume of passenger-kilometers grew by a factor of more than 170. In 1987, Soviet aircraft carried 119 million passengers, of whom 115 million were on domestic flights. By comparison, airline passengers in the United States numbered 418 million, of whom 393 million were on domestic flights (Narodnoye khozyaystvo SSSR 1988, 308, 336; Statistical abstract 1988). In the United States and many other countries, passengers are carried by numerous independent airlines. In the Soviet Union there is only one passenger airline, the government-owned Aeroflot, although a few small operators such as the air arm of the Northern Sea Route supplement its services. As a result, Aeroflot is the world's largest single airline (MacDonald 1975). Air transportation is crucial to a large and relatively roadless country such as the Soviet Union. However, very little recent information exists on the spatial structure of its air-passenger system. The purpose of this article is to further understanding of that system by describing the geographical circumstances under which air transportation evolved, by analyzing air service from the four Moscow airports, and by comparing selected aspects of Soviet air-passenger transportation with those in the United States.