Aeroflot defies sanctions to create new low-cost airline

Russian flag carrier Aeroflot will create a new low-cost unit after Western sanctions grounded its first effort to enter the market, the airline's chief executive said on Sunday (Aug 24).

"We will after all register a new airline," Aeroflot chief executive Vitaly Savelyev was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. He said the company's low-cost carrier, Dobrolyot, had worked well during the six weeks it was allowed to operate.

Dobrolyot was forced to shut down because it flew to Russian-annexed Crimea and was therefore hit by EU sanctions imposed over the Kremlin's alleged support for pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine, including the cancellation of the leasing contracts for its Boeing aircraft.

"We are holding talks with leasing companies and the first steps show that they want to work with us," said Savelyev. He said possible routes were still being worked out, but that the new airline could begin operations from the end of October when the winter schedule begins.

Savelyev said flights to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in March, would depend on demand. Services to the popular Black Sea summer resort are usually cut back during the winter months.

New fuel-efficient jets are key to the success of low-cost airlines as the high cost of fuel often makes it their biggest expense. Leasing allows new airlines the opportunity to acquire aircraft more quickly without huge up-front investments.

Dobrolyot, which operated two Boeing 737-800 aircraft when it was forced to shut down, had planned to lease another six this year to begin flying to a handful of Russian cities.

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Aeroflot sacks drunk long-haul pilot

Russia's flagship airline Aeroflot said Wednesday it had sacked a pilot after pre-flight checks showed he was drunk ahead of a long-haul internal flight.

"The pilot will be sacked from the company," Aeroflot wrote on Twitter, saying that the pilot's blood alcohol content was measured at 0.8 -- defined as a state of light intoxication.

The level of 0.8 would mean someone has trouble judging distances and focusing in different light conditions as well as having delayed reactions.

Passengers were forced to wait almost 10 hours for their flight from Blagoveshchensk on the Chinese border to Moscow on Tuesday.

The pilot will have to pay all the costs of the delay, Aeroflot said.

Aeroflot stressed that the pilot's condition was identified in pre-flight testing, preventing him from flying.

"We cannot control what a pilot does during his time off," it said.

A drunk navigator with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.81 was implicated when a RusAir plane crashed in 2011 in the northwestern region of Karelia.

Russia has a high number of air crashes involving small regional airlines, but Aeroflot is seen as having a good safety record.

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Russian pilots raise alarm over safety at Aeroflot

A union of Russian pilots at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport on Tuesday accused the country's flagship carrier Aeroflot of endangering passengers' lives by overworking staff in search for profit.

The Sheremetyevo Cockpit Personnel Association said that Russia's main airline was employing "tired pilots who can fall asleep at any moment."

"Because of Aeroflot's greed, the safety of citizens is in grave doubt," the association said in a statement.

The company did not address the union's complaint directly when contacted by AFP. But its press service said by email that "our passengers' and flight safety are top priorities of Aeroflot".

Russia's small regional airlines are notorious for their poor flight safety record.

The airlineratings.com flight tracker said Russia witnessed the world's worst crash of 2013 when 50 died in a Tatarstan Airlines Boeing 737 that exploded on landing in November in the Volga River city of Kazan.

Yet state-controlled Aeroflot is believed to have the best record in the country.

The planecrashinfo.com site said Aeroflot has had only one deadly accident in more than a decade - a 2008 crash that killed 88 and was later blamed on a drunken pilot - and the carrier has recently taken huge steps to improve its often mocked image.

The company has in fact been flying high since adopting improved standards once it joined the SkyTeam alliance in 2006.

It has scooped up several awards for eastern European service in the process and SkyTeam now calls Aeroflot's fleet "one of the most modern, youngest and fastest-growing... in Europe."

The national flag carrier this year also burnished its image by becoming the official carrier of the Manchester United football club.

Yet its share of the Russian market has been eroded by cheaper local rivals and now stands at just 40 per cent - a far cry from the days in the Soviet era when it proclaimed itself the world's largest airline.

The airline's statement noted that "Aeroflot was the first Russian carrier to enter the (International Air Transport Association's) Operational Safety Audit Registry, and has confirmed the certificate for the fifth time in 2013."

But the pilots accuse it of failing to compensate them fairly for night flights and thousands of hours of overtime.

The dispute stretches back several years and has resulted in a July Moscow City Court ruling for Aeroflot to pay out debts owed to pilots over 17 months.

The airline has contested the ruling, and the union has since seen three of its leaders jailed on disputed and still unproven embezzlement charges.

The pilots blame the arrest on Aeroflot management's attempts to discredit their cause.

The dispute has even seen the pilots send a letter of complaint to Russian President Vladimir Putin that has thus far gone unanswered.

Their cause has also been picked up by the London-based International Transport Workers' Federation and the International Trade Union Confederation - the world's largest labour organisation.

"While aviation companies in Russia have posted record profits, flight crews have been reduced and aviation infrastructure continues to decay," the International Transport Workers' Federation said in a letter of support for the Russian pilots last month.

"That is why the safety standards and infrastructure are still in a very poor situation," the letter said.

Aeroflot reported a 15 per cent year-on-year jump in passenger numbers and an 84 per cent increase in profit to $545 million (400 million euros) for the first nine months of 2013.

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