Aviation News

Transaero signed a code share with Singapore Airlines. According to this agreement, Singapore Airlines will add their code to Transaero flights from Moscow to Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Samara and St-Petersburg, and Tranasero will share the flights from Moscow to Singapore and to Houston. S7 Russian Airlines recently joined the One World Alliance and is very active in helping foreign airlines connect with the Russian regional airports, where most foreign airlines do not have direct flights.

As of September 2011, Srilankan Airlines and Aeroflot start regular flights between Moscow and Colombo, each airline two times a week. The flights will be direct but with a fuelling stop in Dubai. Russian tour operators selling Sri Lanka, welcome the new route but are still plan to run charter programs for the New Year season, due to the popularity of the destination during the winter period.

As of December 2011, Swiss Air will open a second daily flight from Moscow to Geneva. This will make Switzerland more accessible to the Russian market. This is in addition to the already existing 2 daily flights from Moscow to Zurich and a daily flight to Zurich from St. Petersburg.

Rosaviation published the list of the top 5 Russian airlines according to the passenger traffic for the first 6 months of 2011. The leaders are: Aeroflot (6.2 million passengers, + 22% increase), followed by Transaero (3.4 million passengers, + 24%). In 3rd place is UTair (2.3 million passengers, + 10%). Other airlines in the top 5 are S7 (former Sibir, with hub in Novosibirsk) and Rossiya Airlines (formerly Pulkovo Airlines, based in St-Petersburg). Important charter airlines include Nordwind, founded in 2008 by Pegas Touristik - one of the largest tour operators in Russia focused on Egypt and Turkey. In the first 6 months of 2010, Nordwind carried 735,000 passengers - a 58% increase on 2010 figures.

Czech Airlines will add 7 new flights for 2011/12 winter season. There will be 4 more flights per week from Moscow to Prague and one more flight per week to Prague from St-Petersburg and Samara. Also, as of October 2010, there will be a new direct flights from Samara to Karlovy Vary. In total, Czech Airlines will be operation 50 weekly flights per week from Russia.