Pulkovo airport is to enlarge its network of long-distance flights by attracting new carriers, the airport's management has announced, with new routes opened to the U.S and south-east Asia.

St. Petersburg's rapid economic development and the corresponding increase in passengers using Pulkovo is the major reason behind the initiative, a Pulkovo news release said.

According to statistics from Pulkovo, China and Thailand are the leading countries in terms of increased passenger turnover. The number of passengers coming to and going to these countries have increased by 184 percent and 115 respectively compared to 2006.

It is also estimated that by 2010 the number of tourists visiting the city will have increased 40 percent compared to 2006, and reach five million people a year, a statement from Pulkovo airport said in September last year.

Jon Woolf, the director and principal consultant of the UK-based company Airport Strategy and Marketing, which is working with Pulkovo to develop the airport, called St. Petersburg "the most dynamically developing city in Russia and Europe."

"Based on estimates, this growth will continue in the short- and medium-run," Woolf was quoted by Pulkovo as saying.

"Being the biggest tourism center and having a vigorously developing market of business tourism, St. Petersburg is able to offer airlines unique opportunities for developing their flight routes," Woolf added.

There are also plans to develop Pulkovo as a hub for passengers whose final destination is not St. Petersburg, although at present nearly 70 percent of such passengers fly through Moscow, Alexei Komarov, the chair of the editorial board of the Moscow-based monthly Aviatransportnoe Obozrenie told The St. Petersburg Times on Sep. 10.

Moscow's Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo airports are already being upgraded for this purpose, Komarov said, while Helsinki airport, the Finnair hub will also compete with St. Peterburg.

"They have a very large network, good connections and very good pricing model, it will be very hard to fight with them," Komarov said.

According to information provided by Pulkovo, 100 foreign carriers, including Iberia, SN Brussels, Turkish Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Norwegian Air Scuttle, Air Berlin, Germanwings, WindJet, Montenegro Airlines and 120 Russian airlines already fly from Pulkovo.

Komarov said this "astounding number of air carriers," operating from Pulkovo, with the recent division of the company into an airport and an airline, now part of Rossiya Airlines, made Pulkovo "much more open."