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New York: The number of issued one-way flight tickets from Russia increased 27% the week President Vladimir Putin declared, on September 21, the country\u2019s first mobilisation since World War II, according to flight ticketing data from Spain-based ForwardKeys on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The mobilisation of men to fight in Ukraine has prompted thousands of fighting-age men to flee Russia to avoid a draft that was billed as enlisting those with military experience and specialities but has often appeared oblivious to service records, health, student status and even age.<\/p>\n
The data, which compared bookings from September 21 to 27, to the week before that, shows the share of one-way tickets issued jumped to 73% the week of the announcement, compared with 47% the previous week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese numbers are quite remarkable and correlate with reports at the time of a sudden increase in ticket sales,\u201d said Olivier Ponti, ForwardKeys\u2019 vice president of insights.<\/p>\n
Sixty percent of tickets purchased the week of the announcement had a departure date within 15 days, up from 45% compared with the week before. The average lead time to departure decreased from 34 to 22 days, the company said.<\/p>\n
According to ForwardKeys\u2019 air travel booking data, there was a triple-digit increase for the week that ended September 27, in one-way tickets from Russia to the cities of Tbilisi, Georgia; Almaty, Kazakhstan; Istanbul, Turkey; Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n
Read the latest issue of IOL Travel digital magazine here.<\/p>\n
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