AIR TRANSPORT
16 | Flight International | 10-16 November 2015 flightglobal.com
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ussia’s UTair has near-halved
its seat capacity in a year-long
programme of cuts, with passen-
ger volumes falling by a similar
margin. The carrier now operates
63 mainline aircraft, down from
115 in August 2014, when it intro-
duced streamlining measures to
cope with a slump in demand.
Director of passenger services
Alexei Budnik says implementa-
tion has outpaced the initial
schedule for the comprehensive
programme centred on fleet and
network overhauls. UTair has
phased out all 12 leased Airbus
A321s and six of 15 Boeing 737-
800s, plus four 737-400/500s,
leaving 36 737 Classics in service.
On long-haul routes, the airline
now uses three 767-200 widebod-
ies, down from nine a year ago,
while all nine of its 757-200s were
handed over to subsidiary charter
specialist Katekavia. On the re-
gional side, UTair has disposed of
15 Bombardier CRJ200s, but re-
tained an equal number of larger-
capacity ATR 72-500 turboprops.
Passenger fleet capacity has
halved to 8,000 seats over the past
year. “On the other hand, we’ve
substantially overhauled our
route system,” says Budnik.
“We’ve abandoned eight domestic
and nine foreign destinations,
while launching services on 15
new routes.” ■
AIRLINE TOM ZAITSEV MOSCOW
Leaner times at
UTair, after fleet
rationalisation
EMPLOYMENT DAVID KAMINSKI-MORROW LONDON
Rossiya brings staff in from the coldAbout half of the 6,000 Transaero
employees being accepted by the
Aeroflot Group will be stationed with
its Rossiya subsidiary.
Aeroflot Group says that more
than 3,000 Transaero employees will
be recruited by St Petersburg-based
Rossiya at a newly-created Moscow
subsidiary which was formally estab-
lished on 30 October. Aeroflot says
585 staff have already been recom-mended for employment there.
Rossiya is the largest of Aeroflot
Group’s subsidiaries, contributing
13% of the company’s 17.9 million
passengers in the first half of 2015.
Aeroflot Group says it intends to
take around 700 pilots and 2,
cabin crew from Transaero, as well
as 1,000 technical and 1,
ground personnel, plus 300 admin-
istrative staff. ■A
eroflot intends to enhance its
in-house maintenance capa-
bilities using ex-Transaero engi-
neering staff and assets.
The flag carrier’s advisory board
has endorsed the creation an enter-
prise that will provide mainte-
nance, repair and overhaul servic-
es for aircraft operated by Aeroflot
and subsidiary airlines. This new
entity within the Aeroflot Group is
to incorporate a technical centre,
at Moscow Vnukovo airport, that
was leased by Transaero prior to its
ceasing operations on 26 October.
“To facilitate approval proce-
dures, we’ve decided to register it
as an affiliate of Aeroflot-Fi-
nance,” says a source at the board.
“Initially, it will be tasked with
line maintenance of [the] Aeroflot
fleet, including the leased aircraft
to be transferred from Transaero.”
Aeroflot is looking to take on
Transaero engineering personnel
as well as the MRO facility.
“Transaero has highly skilled
technical staff working there,”
says the source. “It would be a
mistake to leave these specialists
behind, the more so that most of
them want to keep their jobs
under a new employer.”
The move follows a memoran-
dum of understanding with Sber-
bank to transfer operating leases of
at least 14 Transaero jets to Aero-
flot. These aircraft comprise fourMAINTENANCE TOM ZAITSEV MOSCOWAeroflot builds on rival’s ruin
Russian carrier’s MRO operation to be bolstered with former Transaero engineering assetsBoeing 747-400s and 10 737-800s.
In addition, spares specialist
AJW Group will, later this month,
auction off a range of components
from Transaero. The stock coversparts for 747-400s, 777s and cur-
rent- and older-variant 737s. AJW
says the spares were pledged as
collateral under a security agree-
ment reached in June. ■AirTeamImages
Aircraft formerly operated by Transaero are in storage at Shannon[email protected] (800) 321-5253 (520) 295-Direct To the Fast Lane
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