Russian & CIS Commercial Aviation Insights

Russia’s flag carrier is also hopeful to regain 80 per cent of international business

During the pandemic travel lockdown the airline converted 12 of its aircraft for freight missions

Other countries are in no rush to open borders to Russian travelers either

The international leisure charter carrier has launched scheduled domestic service

The country’s carriers served 949,000 passengers in May

Two Superjet 100s receive airline's livery

The milestone is of importance for the LCC, as most of the nation’s airlines are on EU’s black list

Ukraine’s Windrose Airlines took delivery of an ATR 72-600 on lease from Nordic Aviation Capital (NAC), the lessor said in a statement. The six-year old aircraft (MSN 1178) is the first of total eight turboprops the airline is planning to add to its otherwise all-jet fleet. Founded in 2003, Windrose has been active as a leisure carrier operating in the Ukrainian air travel market, but earlier this year the airline has announced plans to diversify its business by launching domestic scheduled services, linking nation’s six largest cities – Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Nikolayev, Dnipro and Kharkiv. To support this business expansion, the airline is adding 70-seat ATR 72-600s to its fleet. Eventually the turboprops will replace its five 48-seat Embraer 145s operating on both domestic and international routes. Windrose’s passenger fleet currently consists of five Airbus A321s and an A320, as well as five Embraer 145 regional jets. Windrose is one of the two Ukrainian carriers which has been registered as an IOSA (IATA Operational Safety Audit) certified airline. The airline carried 1.44 million passengers in 2019, a 11.2 per cent improvement on the previous year.

The start-up LCC plans to serve six European destinations from Chisinau using its Romanian partner’s permit

Air Astana is re-launching flights to Georgia, South Korea and Turkey starting June 20

The Hungarian low-cost carrier will operate 11 routes from St. Petersburg starting September

S7 Airlines is still leading the market

“There is an upward trend in passenger numbers, it is clearly manifesting itself.”

Moldovan budget carrier to restore its network of 14 destinations

But it is still down six-fold year-on-year

Russia’s largest private airline even adds new destinations to its domestic network

Last month turns out the worst for the country’s airlines so far this year

Initially, the flag carrier intends to operate 14 aircraft on selected medium-haul international point-to-point flights

This huge amount is higher than the total funds that have been set aside as a bailout measure for the nation’s entire Coronavirus crisis-plagued airline industry

Air Astana Cargo to operate a fleet of three partly converted Boeing 767-300s