Bernie Ecclestone arrives at the Sochi International Airport VIP lounge

Basel Aero, a part of Russia’s largest industrial diversified group Basic Element, has announced that Sochi International Airport, a main gateway to the upcoming Russian Formula 1 Grand Prix, is planning to serve over 114,000 arriving and departing passengers on October 6th-13th.

Sochi International Airport is expecting to serve 114,240 arriving and departing passengers from 30 countries on board over 730 flights including up to 300 private jets.

Almost a week before the start of the F1 race, the guests are arriving to Sochi via direct flights from all over the world.

On Monday, Alitalia flight en-route from Frankfurt landed in Sochi with 200 people on-board.

Three Korean Air jumbo jets brought 800 F1 fans from Japanese F1 Grand Prix in Nagoya.

On peak days, October 9th-13th, Sochi Airport will handle over 1,930 arriving passengers (October 11th) per hour and over 1,360 departing passengers (October 13th) hourly.

The airport broke the records on February 24th, 2014 when 23,000 people went through the gateway following the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games.

The airport will welcome up to 300 private jets on October 9th-11th, what is 100 flights more than during the International Investment Forum in Sochi that was held in mid-September.

F1 pilots and officials have started arriving in Sochi.

Among the first F1 pilots who arrived from Japan, which hosted F1 Grand Prix over the past weekend, are Russian racer Daniil Kvyat and French Jean-Eric Vergne, who are both from team Toro Rosso, as well as Germany’s Nico Rosberg from team Mercedes and French Romain Grosjean from team Lotus.

Bernie Ecclestone, chief executive of Formula One Group, arrived at the Sochi International airport at 16:40 local time on Wednesday on-board Dassault Falcon 7X.

Leonid Sergeyev, Basel Aero chief executive: “Sochi Airport has a unique expertise on how to deal with overloads.

“When there’s increased passenger turnover, we develop shifts schedule with hourly numbers of personnel.

“Due to this method, we have successfully coped with massive Olympic overloads and during the recent investment forum.

“The same approach is used during the Formula 1 Grand Prix.

“We also engage staff from other Basel Aero’s airports in Krasnodar, Anapa and Gelenzhik.”