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| Founded | 1999 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hubs | |||||||
| Subsidiaries | Sky Gates Airlines [2] | ||||||
| Fleet size | 27 | ||||||
| Destinations | 28 | ||||||
| Headquarters | Moscow, Russia | ||||||
| Key people | Yevgeny Solodilin (CEO) [3] | ||||||
| Website | www | ||||||
Red Wings Airlines is a Russian regional leisure[ clarification needed ] airline based in Moscow Domodedovo Airport. The airline provides both scheduled passenger and cargo services.
Red Wings was founded in 1999 under the name VARZ-400, after the Russian acronym of the Vnukovo Avia Repair Factory. It was renamed Airlines 400 in 2001, before adopting its current name in 2007.
The airline was owned by Russian tycoon Alexander Lebedev, who wanted to create a discount airline using modern Russian Tupolev Tu-204-100B 210-passenger twin-jet airliners, both newly built and used. The company had a fleet of ten Tu-204-100Bs (an eleventh Tu-204 was written off after crashing at Vnukovo International Airport on 29 December 2012), and had also sought to acquire Airbus A320s and possibly Airbus A321s to complement its Tu-204 fleet. [4]
Lebedev also owned 49% of German charter airline Blue Wings, which was to become Red Wings's sister company. However, on 13 January 2010, Blue Wings ceased all operations and filed for bankruptcy, citing the global financial crisis for a pull-out of investors. [5]
After the crash of Flight 9268 in Vnukovo, Russian aviation authorities initiated an emergency check of airline operational activities and fleet maintenance, resulting in the revocation of the carrier's AOC, effective on 4 February 2013. The airline had ceased all operations the day before and owner Alexander Lebedev announced that no return to operation was planned. [6] [7]
On 4 April 2013, NRC sold Red Wings Airlines Group "Guta" for one symbolic ruble (in this case, leased aircraft remained with the lessor NRC-owned company "Ilyushin Finance"). The new owners of Red Wings planned to increase the fleet to 10–15 aircraft; the airline was only going to buy Russian aircraft. On 25 April 2013, Red Wings announced it would be headed by Sergey Belov—the previous CEO of the airline "Russia". On 18 June 2013, the Federal Air Transport Agency renewed Red Wings' commercial passenger and cargo transportation certificate. On 22 June, the airline resumed charter flights, and on 12 July, scheduled flights from Moscow.
To increase their business power, Red Wings and Nordavia decided to merge. But while the process was initiated, a date for finalization of the merger or clarification of the two airlines' future business relationship and branding identities was never announced. The plan called for Airbus A320 aircraft initially ordered by Nordavia to be delivered to Red Wings. The new brand name was to be announced after the completion of the merger. [8]
On 20 September 2018, Red Wings announced its re-branding; the first aircraft to arrive with the updated livery was to be the Airbus A321, set to arrive by the end of 2018. [9]
In August 2021 Red Wings signed their first personal services 20-year contract to the value of 500 million dollars with United Aircraft Corporation in order to technical support of SSJ100 engines. Before, only the engine's manufacturer, PowerJet company, could carry the right to sign any technical support contracts with air companies directly. [10]
Currently, Red Wings Airlines has codeshare agreement with following airlines:
The Red Wings fleet consists of the following aircraft as of January 2024: [13] [14] [15]
| Aircraft | In service | Orders | Passengers | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | Y | Total | ||||
| Boeing 777-200ER | 3 | — | – | 412 | 412 | |
| Sukhoi Superjet 100-95 | 20 | 40 | – | 100 | 100 | Order of overall 60 aircraft. [16] |
| Tupolev Tu 204-100 [ citation needed ] | 3 | — | – | 210 | 210 | |
| Tupolev Tu-214 [17] | 1 | — | – | 194 | 194 | Used for international flights. Will eventually replace the A320 and A321s. |
| Yakovlev MC-21-300 | — | 16 [18] [19] | TBA | |||
| Total | 27 | 56 | ||||
Red Wings Airlines previously also operated the following types of aircraft:[ citation needed ]
The Tupolev Tu-154 is a three-engined, medium-range, narrow-body airliner designed in the mid-1960s and manufactured by Tupolev. A workhorse of Soviet and (subsequently) Russian airlines for several decades, it carried half of all passengers flown by Aeroflot and its subsidiaries, remaining the standard domestic-route airliner of Russia and former Soviet states until the mid-2000s. It was exported to 17 non-Russian airlines and used as a head-of-state transport by the air forces of several countries.
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This is a list of aviation-related events from 2010.
Aviastar-TU Flight 1906 was a Tupolev Tu-204 that crashed while attempting to land at Domodedovo International Airport, Moscow, Russia, in heavy fog on 22 March 2010. The aircraft was on a ferry flight from Hurghada International Airport, Egypt to Moscow, and had no passengers on board; all eight crew survived the accident, four with serious injuries requiring hospitalization and four with minor injuries. The accident was the first hull loss of a Tu-204 and the first hull loss for Aviastar-TU.
Vnukovo Airlines was a Russian airline which had its corporate headquarters at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow. It was created as a spin-off from the Vnukovo Airport division of Aeroflot in March 1993 and operated until 2001, when it was bought by Siberian Airlines.
Dagestan Airlines Flight 372 was a scheduled commercial flight between Moscow's Vnukovo Airport and Makhachkala, Russia. On 4 December 2010, the Tupolev Tu-154 operating the flight skidded off the runway following an emergency landing at Domodedovo Airport, 45 kilometres south-east of Vnukovo. Two people on board were killed.
Red Wings Airlines Flight 9268 was a Tupolev Tu-204-100 passenger jet that on 29 December 2012 crashed on landing at Moscow Vnukovo Airport, Russia, following a repositioning flight from Pardubice Airport, Czech Republic. There were no passengers on board, but 5 of the 8 crew members were killed when the aircraft hit a ditch and highway structures after overrunning the runway.
Media related to Red Wings Airlines at Wikimedia Commons
