New planes to link northern Russia with Norway
Aeroflot-Nord will start operate the 50-seat Embraer 145 jet on the main cross-border flight Arkhangelsk-Murmansk-Tromsø. The modern jet-engine plane will replace the older Anatonov-24 plane which has been linking Northwest-Russia with Northern Norway for the last 15 years.
Arkhangelsk airlines started to fly the route Arkhangelsk – Tromsø via Murmansk back in 1993. In 2004 Arkhangelsk airlines was bought by Aeroflot and renamed Aeroflot-Nord.
Aeroflot-Nord has received approval in principle from the governing board to operate up to 10 of the 50-seat Embraer 145 jets to replace Tupolev Tu-134s and Antonov An-24s on regional routes, writes Flightsglobal.com.
Designed for regional flights
The ERJ 145 was designed from the beginning with the regional airline market in mind. The aircraft had its first commerisal flights in 1996. Aeroflot-Nord will be the first Russian airliners to operate Embraer ERJ-145.
More cross-border links
The airliner are also looking into the possibility to use the Embraer 145 aircrafts for providing other cross-border links from major local cities, such as St Petersburg, Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Petrozavodsk to hubs in neighbouring European countries.
Four times a week to Tromsø
Tentatively, the first of EMB-145s will include three aircrafts, with five to seven more aircraft to be acquired over the next year. There are four weekly flights to Tromsø.
