Sochi has been short-listed as a host city for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games, along with Austria's Salzburg and South Korea's PyeongChang. The city bid for the 1998 and 2002 Winter Olympics, but was rejected largely due to its poor-quality Soviet infrastructure.
Sochi International Airport received unwelcome publicity in May as the destination of an Armenian airliner that crashed into the Black Sea in stormy weather, killing all 113 passengers and crew on board.
Following a government order passed on July 3, 2006, the airport was included on a list of federal unitary companies to be privatized in 2006. The airport has since been converted into a joint-stock company, with 100% state ownership.
The government's privatization plan for 2006, announced last year, listed 885 federal unitary companies and 383 joint-stock companies.
Sochi International Airport has air links to 120 cities in Russia and abroad. During the first eight months of 2006, the airport served 975,570 passengers.
