RedWings Airlines is launching a large-scale project of creating a regional hub in Koltsovo international airport (part of the Airports of Regions holding) in Yekaterinburg. Already starting on October 9 this carrier will commence flights from Koltsovo to six new destinations such as Noyabrsk, Voronezh, Orenburg, Kemerovo and others. Thus the number of regional flight routes from Yekaterinburg has been increased to nine by RedWings and it’s now possible for travelers to fly from the European part of Russia to Western Siberia using connection flights departing from Koltsovo. RedWings Airlines performs regional flights from Yekaterinburg since mid-September, whereas there were three destinations in its route network before: Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod and Saratov.
According to CEO RedWings Evgeny Klyucharev, the carrier entering the said routes will save much precious time for flyers and will open new destinations on our country’s map for them.
“In 2021 RedWings plans to increase the number of destinations reachable from Yekaterinburg to 25.Our joint project with Koltsovo and Sverdlovsk regional government is aimed at addressing two national challenges. First and foremost, we’d like to raise the share of direct flights between Russian cities, bypassing Moscow, to 50%, as was instructed by President Putin in 2018. Secondly, the project must support the national aviation industry due to the use of SSJ100 made in Russia. RedWings Airlines is called to become a model operator of these jets in order to demonstrate their efficiency. It is SSJ100 planes that are ideally suited for regional flights because of their lesser seating capacity. Super jets in our fleet have a full economy layout seating 100 passengers each.
Prior to the launch of our project there had been no direct flights from Yekaterinburg to Volgograd, Makhachkala, Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod and Kemerovo (there hadn’t been any direct flights to Volgograd since 2016 and to Kemerovo since 2011), with a single carrier operating flights to Orenburg, Novosibirsk, Voronezh and Noyabrsk.”
CEO MC Airports of Regions Evgeny Chudnovsky underlined in his turn that Koltsovo airport supports airlines contributing to higher affordability of the air transport.
“Koltsovo is now a leader of Russia’s airport industry, developing as an Urals hub with all essential infrastructure in place. There’s a vast route network created in Yekaterinburg with long-distance national and international routes being strongly developed. We expect RedWings Airlines both to amplify the regional segment of Koltsovo services and to connect numerous routes between each other, thus ensuring convenient connections for travelers from different Russian regions.”