MOSCOW—The Russian government plans to create a new airline that is expected to provide passenger services between remote regions in the country’s Far East.
According to the first deputy minister of transport and head of the Federal Agency of Air Transport, Alexander Neradko, it will be an alliance among airlines that already operate in that part of the country. Aurora, a joint venture between Russia’s largest carrier Aeroflot (51%) and the government of Sakhalin (49%), will form the basis of the new carrier.
Neradko discussed creation of a new carrier with Aisen Nikolaev, the head of the Sakha Republic—also known as Yakutia and another region in Russia’s Far East—on June 30. Nikolaev suggested adding two airlines based in his region—Polar Airlines and Yakutia—to the alliance. “Our regional carriers Yakutia and Polar Airlines serve 90 long-range and 192 local destinations,” he said.
Aurora has bases in the three largest cities in the Far East: Khabarovsk, Vladivostok and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Yakutia and Polar airlines operate from Yakutsk in eastern Siberia. The three airlines carried a total of almost 2.5 million passengers in 2019. Aurora was the largest with 1.6 million passengers.
The airlines’ combined fleet of 85 aircraft makes for a motley crew: Aurora operates 10 Airbus A319 jets alongside 16 de Havilland Canada turboprops, nine DHC-8s and seven DHC-6s; Yakutia has five Boeing 737NGs, four Sukhoi Superjet 100s and four DHC-8s; and Polar has the largest fleet that includes 19 Mil Mi-8 helicopters, 15 Antonov An-24/26 turboprops and some smaller aircraft.
Letting Aurora become a core for the new airline appeals to parent Aeroflot, which wants to get rid of its smallest subsidiary as it seeks to optimize its operations amid the COVID-19 crisis. In May, Aeroflot offered the Sakhalin authorities the chance to buy out its 51% stake in Aurora.
The idea to set up a new airline that will only operate Russian aircraft to provide passenger and freight services in the Far East belongs to President Vladimir Putin. First voiced in 2018, it was expected the airline would be established by government-owned banks Sberbank and VTB. They later found the plan unattractive.
Putin returned to his idea in May. A new government stimulus plan for the post-pandemic economic recovery would allocate RUB30 billion ($418 million) for the new airline. Its creation also is aimed at supporting Russian aircraft manufacturing as the new carrier is expected to purchase about 60 Superjets.
Nikolaev noted that Yakutia was the only one of the three carriers that already operates Superjets. But their poor performance almost put Yakutia into the red in 2018. Participation in the new alliance will give the regional authorities a chance to secure cash for loss-making Yakutia.
The promise of generous financing from the federal budget has generated another suggestion for the new Far East carrier. Rostec Corp., which controls Russia’s only manufacturer of fixed-wing aircraft, United Aircraft Corp. (UAC), previously offered to form the new airline around Red Wings. Red Wings is owned by Ilyushin Finance, the leasing arm of UAC.
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