Myös Venäjän puolelta etenkin Pietarin alueelta tulee Ryanairille matkustajia. He ajavat omalla autollaan tänne Pirkkalaan ja jatkavat lentäen matkaa muualle Eurooppaan.
Do not understand, huh? Yeah, it's in Finnish. But never mind, I'll translate it to you. "Many Ryanair passengers come also from Russia, especially from the vincinity of St. Petersburg. They drive with their own cars here to (Tampere) Pirkkala and continue their travel to other regions of Europe flying from here" - writes a local newspaper Tamperelainen. And then: "Every day we see up to 30 cars with Russian registration parking ahead of the Terminal 2".
See, that's what I was writing about a year ago. Would you imagine driving yourself hundreds of kilometers just in order to get to the nearest low-cost airport? If you didn't know, the distance from St. Peterburg to Tampere by road is a meagre 550 kilometers! You wouldn't, would you? But such a travel is still advantageous for these people in spite of fuel costs and fatigue, giving some indication about how expensive the flight tickets actually in Russia are. I've heard also about Russian people driving their cars (or making an exhausting travel in night trains) from Sankt-Peterburg to Latvian Riga - for the same purpose. Would you believe?
Looking at the new trend, we cannot regard Russians as a "mass of a colourless poor people" anymore. There are many social classes in Russia nowadays: a rich minority (that will never be interested in low-cost sector as passengers, they could only be investors), and yes, there still is a large group of people too poor to even consider flying to Western Europe. Apart from that, there did however emerge a pretty strong middle-class too. And just this group could be a target for RYR & Co. for the future expansion. If miracles happen, Russia will join Open Skies and we'll see new low-cost airports being built around Moscow and Sankt-Peterburg. Otherwise, you still can benefit (as a carrier and as a local community) and take part in this development by serving the Russian citizens at a dedicated Airport(s) as close to the Russian border as possible. Did you know St. Petersburg is less than 170 km from the EU border in some directions? It's possible to make use of some airports in Finland (albeit Tampere is too distant, look at EFLP) or in Estonia, Latvia, Poland and so on. It would mean providing bus transfers and many other organizing efforts, but It would pay. Just a vision? Maybe, I can't help being a visioneer, but the low-cost air travel in Europe is far from saturation, that's what I'm pointing at.