On November 15, 2010, one of the leading Russian domestic carriers S7 (formerly called Sibir), joined the OneWorld® airline alliance. By joining the group, S7 is now able to offer its passengers a large network of routes worldwide covered by other alliance members such as American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia and many others. The new OneWorld member will add 55 destinations across Russia to the alliance map, and 9 CIS countries including Armenia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Azerbaijan.
As of November, 2010, Aeroflot starts direct regular flights from Moscow to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. The flight will be operated twice a week by Airbus A330 with 280 seats capacity. Until now, the destination was reachable only by the charter flights by Transaero. Since 2005, the number of Russians visiting the Dominican rep, more than doubled, and in 2010 Russia became one of the main source markets alongside with the US, Argentina and Puerto Rico. During January - September 2010, the Dominican rep received 47,600 Russian tourists, which is 55% increase compared to the same period of last year. September alone demonstrated a record 185% growth compared to September 2009.
Starting from November, several airlines launched direct regular flights to Istanbul, Turkey. Ural Airlines will fly twice a week from Ekaterinburg, targeting business travellers and tourists who enjoy shopping. A small regional carrier RusLine starts flying to Istanbul twice a week from Volgograd. DonAvia increases their flights from Rostov-on-Don up to 4 times per week. Yekaterinburg and Rostov already had direct flights to Istanbul served by Turkish Airlines. Nord Avia, will start flying to Istanbul from Moscow two times a week. As one market experts explained, the increase of direct flights reflects a growing interest from the Russian market towards the rich sightseeing potential of Istanbul, overshadowing itsimage as a cheap shopping destination that dominated its image in the past.