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| Russia’s newest airline launched this week with four destinations from Moscow Vnukovo – Rostov-On-Don, Samara, Sochi/Adler and Krasnodar. |
Proving that there are always optimists working in the airline industry, this week saw the start of operations for Russia’s newest airline, Avianova. With two 180-seat A320s the airline has started serving four domestic destinations from Moscow Vnukovo (VKO) airport. Rostov-On-Don (ROV), Samara (KUF) and Sochi/Adler (AER) will each initially be served daily while Krasnodar (KRR) will have four weekly connections. Thrice-weekly services to Naberezhnye Chelny (NBC) begin on 28 September. The airline plans to be ultra low-cost and grow to 40 aircraft within five years.
| Destination | WF | Depart VKO | Competition from VKO (weekly frequency) |
| Rostov-On-Don | 7 | 17:40 | Aeroflot-Don (21), SkyExpress (13), UTair (7) |
| Samara | 7 | 13:15 | UTair (21) |
| Sochi/Adler | 7 | 06:00 | Airlines of Kuban (3), Atlant-Soyuz (5), SkyExpress (20), UTair (14), Yakutia (7) |
| Krasnodar | 4 | 14:20 | Airlines of Kuban (34), UTair (7), Yakutia (5) |
| Source: Avianova and OAG Max Online for w/c 7 September 2009 WF: Weekly Frequency |
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Moscow Vnukovo is by far the smallest of the three Moscow airports and handled just under eight million passengers last year.
Now where have we heard of them before…
One of the two shareholders in the new airline is Indigo Partners a US-based investment fund which also has ties to Spirit Air in the US, Tiger Airways in Singapore and Australia, and Wizz Air in Central Europe. Coincidentally (or not) all of these airlines operate purely Airbus aircraft.
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