Aviation News
The national carrier Aeroflot will shortly start regular flights from Moscow to Tel Aviv in Israel. The flights will be 6 times a week from the Sheremetievo airport making Aeroflot the 4th carrier to fly to Israel which already has regular flights with Transaero, El Al and IsrAir.
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According to Rosaviation, the total number of airline passengers flying out of Russia during the first 4 months of 2010, increased by 40%. The leading 5 airlines in Russia include: Aeroflot, Transaero, S7, Utair and Rossiya. Overall, they carried 56% of all passengers who travelled internationally and domestically. The leading passenger carrier is Aeroflot, which carried over 3 million people from January - April 2010, which was a 30% increase on 2009 figures.
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Turkish Airlines has launched a regular flight from Istanbul to Sochi, a Russian resort town on the Black Sea. The flight will be operated 3 times a week. Sochi is 7th Russian destination for Turkish Airlines after Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Rostov, Ufa and St-Petersburg.
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As of June, the Greek charter airline Blue Bird started direct flights from Domodedovo airport in Moscow to Rhodes, Corfu, Iraklion and Thessaloniki. Flights will run twice a week to Rhodes and Corfu, and once a week to Iraklion and Thessaloniki. Another carrier, the Russian Airline or Rossiya, has started direct flights from St-Petersburg to Crete. It will run twice weekly flights to Iraklion. Prior to this launch Crete could only be reached by charter flights from St- Petersburg.
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Also in June, S7 Airlines started direct, regular weekly flight from Moscow to Rimini in Italy, making it the 5th new destination that S7 has added to its portfolio this summer. Earlier in the year they launched regular flights to Alicante and Palma de Mallorca in Spain, as well as Vienna and Prague. From October, they plan to open a direct flight from Khabarovsk, in the Far East of Russia to Bangkok, Thailand. The flights will be operated once every 2 weeks.