Kurumoch International Airport

Kurumoch International Airport is the principal airport of the Volga region of Russia, serving the twin cities of Samara and Togliatti, and handling roughly 3.3 million passengers annually. Its catchment — the Samara metropolitan area (population 1.16 million), Togliatti (0.7 million, Russia's automotive capital and home to AvtoVAZ, maker of the Lada), and the wider Samara Oblast — makes KUF the largest airport between Moscow and the Urals after Kazan and Ufa, and positions it as the main aviation gateway to an industrial and energy-producing region that includes petrochemicals, aerospace, and automotive manufacturing. KUF is named after the nearby village of Kurumoch and sits roughly equidistant between Samara and Togliatti. KUF is served by Russian carriers Aeroflot, Pobeda, S7, Ural Airlines, Red Wings, Azimuth, Utair, and NordStar on domestic routes to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Yekaterinburg, and Novosibirsk. International service, historically including Turkish Airlines to Istanbul, Uzbekistan Airways to Tashkent, and seasonal charters to Antalya, has been reshaped by EU airspace closure since 2022, leaving predominantly Turkey, Central Asia, and UAE as the available international markets. Russia's FIFA 2018 World Cup investment funded significant terminal and infrastructure upgrades at KUF, as Samara was one of the host cities. A single runway, 15/33, measures 9,843 ft (3,000 m). The modern Terminal 1, expanded ahead of the 2018 World Cup, added substantial capacity and jet bridges. KUF sits 35 km (22 mi) north of Samara and 50 km (31 mi) southeast of Togliatti in the Volzhsky District, at an elevation of 476 ft (145 m) on the forested banks of the Volga River. The airport is operated by Airports of Regions, a major Russian regional airport holding company.