Aeroflot-Nord becomes Arkhangelsk Airlines

According to Aeroflot company director Valerii Okulev, the decision to interrupt cooperation with Aeroflot-Nord was made before last weekend’s tragic accident.

The catastrophe with the aircraft owned and operated by the Northwest Russian airline major Aeroflot-Nord now strains the reputation of Aeroflot, the owner of 51 percent of the company. This Sunday’s accident in Perm, Western Siberia, took the lives of 88 passengers, including 3 stewardesses from Arkhangelsk.

Official representatives of Aeroflot-Nord confirm that the pilots were very experienced and that the aircraft was in good technical condition. The Boeing-737 was produced 17 years ago and had earlier been owned by a Chinese company. Totally, Aeroflot-Nord now owns 33 aircrafts, including 12 Boeings. The company is in the list of 10 biggest Russian air carriers taking the 9th place in the rating of Russian air companies by transportation of passengers.

In the course of the last six months, the company transported 723,000 passengers which is up 51 percent from the same period last year. Aeroflot-Nord makes regular flights to 21 cities in 11 Russian regions and abroad – to Norway and the Ukraine. The company had ambitious plans to open new flights to several countries in northern Europe. In particular it was studied a possibility to reopen the regular flight Arkhangelsk-Rovaniemi-Lulea and Arkhangelsk-Oslo.

Aeroflot-Nord was the first Russian company entering the European Regions Airline Association (ERA). In September this year Aeroflot-Nord announced a plan of getting the certificate of International Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) is an internationally recognised evaluation system to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline.

Last week’s catastrophe will probably change the plans of the company, which from Monday September 15 has to restore its former name – AVL (Arkhangelskie Vozdushnye Avialinii) – the name used by the company before being swallowed by Aeroflot in 2004.

BarentsObserver Arkhangelsk

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Aeroflot-Nord fell to the ground 15 September 2008