Russian Aviaton » Thursday December 28, 2017 18:39 MSK

Russian President Vladimir Putin backed a proposal for country’s flagship carrier Aeroflot to sell flight tickets to fans of the Russian national football team during the 2018 FIFA World Cup for a price of five rubles ($0.09).

"This will not be free of charge because we want to see the championship as a five-star event," Vitaly Savelyev, the company’s director general, said at a meeting with Putin on Thursday. This reported by TASS.

"We will carry all Russian football fans along Aeroflot’s routes to any city, which hosts matches of the World Cup, for a price of five rubles for a one-way ticket," he said. "Tickets will be sold three days before and three days after a particular match in order to prevent a possible rush."

"Okay," President Putin replied and asked whether this campaign would apply only to Russian football fans only.

"This will be for the fans of the Russian national team only," Savelyev affirmed. "This will mean for us (Aeroflot) approximately 70,000 aircraft seats. In case our football team makes it to the final there will be more seats and we have reserved such possibility."

"We believe that our team should play at a five-star level, fans should be satisfied and this is why we turned to you with such initiative," Aeroflot’s director general said adding that if Putin granted support then the company would begin implementing the initiative starting on January 1.

After successfully hosting the FIFA Confederations Cup matches this past summer in four Russian cities, namely Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan and Sochi, the country is now in full-swing preparations to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

The country selected 11 host cities to be the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup and they are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.

The matches of the 2018 World Cup will be held between June 14 and July 15 at 12 stadiums located in the 11 aforementioned cities across Russia. Two of the stadiums are located in the Russian capital.