Aeroflot details plans for new Far East subsidiary and LCC Dobrolet

 

Aeroflot (SU, Moscow Sheremetyevo) has announced that it has changed the name of its new subsidiary based in the Far East of Russia ahead of its launch choosing Aurora (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk) over the previously announced name of Taiga Airline (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk).

 SAT Airlines (Russia) (HZ, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk) will be rebranded as Aurora from the end of October with its subsidiary Vladivostok Air (XF, Vladivostok) initially continuing operations as a separate entity but eventually also expected to be merged into Aurora at a later stage. In other news, Aeroflot has confirmed details of its planned new low-cost carrier Dobrolet (Moscow Sheremetyevo) to be launched next year. Aeroflot CEO Vitaly Savelyev said the new carrier would based in Moscow (without yet specifying the airport the LCC will use) and serve mainly cities in the European part of Russia using a fleet of initially eight B737-800 aircraft with a capacity of 170 seats. Ekaterinburg, Kaliningrad, Krasnodar, Makhachkala, Novy Urengoy, St. Petersburg, Samara Kurumoch and Ufa have been mentioned as possible launch destinations. Aeroflot said it will invest 100 million USD in Dobrolet in the next 2 years. The airline will be the only low-cost carrier in Russia following the closures of Avia Nova (AO, Moscow Sheremetyevo) and Sky Express (Russia) (XW, Moscow Vnukovo) in recent years. However, UTair (UT, Khanty-Mansiysk) is also considering launching its own low-cost carrier.
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Photo:Ton Jochems  -AYT