2014 Marketing Promotions

For the purpose of attracting additional passengers and boosting revenue, the marketing promotions were introduced in 2014 for passengers travelling in compartment carriages of some domestic trains formed by JSC FPC.

In the first half of 2014, the following pricing adjustments were made for passengers travelling in compartment carriages of some domestic trains formed by JSC FPC:

• Ticket price adjustments based on how early passengers buy their tickets: 50% to 20% off the price of tickets sold 45 to 31 days before the train departure or a 10% increase of the price for tickets sold 10 or less days before the train departure;
• Price reductions for return tickets and full-compartment tickets.

In order to increase revenue in the deregulated segment, the price of compartment carriage tickets was increased by 5% on September 02.

On September 15, 2014, the previously introduced large-scale marketing promotion was updated as follows: the size of the discount for tickets bought 45 to 31 days before the departure was reduced to 40% (instead of 50%) and limited to upper berths in compartment carriages only.

The result of the campaign was that, even though the passenger traffic dropped by 2.5% (16.8 thousand people), revenue reached RUB 45 billion by the end of the year, only 1.9% down on 2013. In the deregulated segment, a growth of 100% was seen in the domestic service.

Had no promotions been introduced, the passenger traffic would have fallen by about 7%, while revenue would have been only 96% of what it had been the year before.

The main goal of these discounts and surcharges is to encourage passengers to buy their tickets as early as possible; it is assumed that such early sales help manage the carriage fleet more efficiently (form trains in the most efficient way).