Pulkovo Airlines
| Pulkovo Airlines | |
|---|---|
 
|
|
| IATA code : | FV |
| ICAO code : | PLK |
| Call sign : | Pulkovo |
| Founding: | 1932 |
| Operation stopped: | 2006 |
| Seat: |
Saint Petersburg , Russia
|
| Home airport : | Pulkovo airport |
| Alliance : | no |
| Fleet size: | 49 |
| Aims: | National and international |
| Pulkovo Airlines ceased operations in 2006. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
Pulkovo Airlines was a Russian airline based in Saint Petersburg until it was taken over by the airline Rossija . It was part of Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise , which also operated Pulkovo Airport . In October 2006 the company was separated into two independent companies. Both are named after a suburb of the city of Saint Petersburg, next to which the airport is located.
history
Pulkovo Airlines described itself as the oldest airline in Russia. It took up flight operations on June 24, 1932 as part of Aeroflot . The predecessor of today's company was the Leningrad directorate of the Soviet Aeroflot.
Even after the end of the Soviet Union, the aircraft initially continued to bear the Aeroflot logo, even if the Pulkovo Aviation Group was founded in 1992 , which took over all of the division's aircraft. In 1996 the company name was changed to Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise . It was not until 1997 that the aircraft were given their own color scheme. Many unprofitable routes were discontinued. New routes were mainly used to fly to western countries and Israel .
In 2001 Pulkovo joined the IATA . To this day, there are close ties with Aeroflot. In June 2006 Pulkovo signed a code- sharing agreement with Aeroflot to operate various European flights from Saint Petersburg. The company employs around 1,600 people.
On October 27, 2006, the merger of Pulkovo Airlines with the airline Rossija , which had been aimed for since 2003, was officially completed, with the newly created airline being called Rossija. The Rossija fleet had previously been operationally managed by Pulkovo. With the entry into force of the winter flight schedule on October 29, 2006, Pulkowo will only be used as the name of the airport, while the flight business will be operated under the new name Rossija.
The merger is said to have been initiated primarily by the government, which is hoping to gain direct control over the second largest Russian airline (see also: Rossija ). Another motivation for the merger is said to be the international pressure on Saint Petersburg and Russia to legally separate the operator of the airport and the operator of the airline that controls this airport.
The news that the (state) Saint Petersburg foreign trade bank WTB has taken over the financing (leasing) of up to 16 Airbus A320-200s for the new Pulkovo / Rossija group attracted attention in the industry . The aircraft are to be handed over after the merger has been completed, although it is still unclear which of the two brands will carry them. At the same time it became known that WTB had taken over 4.8% of the shares in the Airbus parent company EADS .
In the meantime, there is also close cooperation with non-Russian airlines. In June 2006, code- sharing agreements were signed with the Polish state line LOT for the Kaliningrad-Warsaw route and with the low-cost airline Norwegian on the Saint Petersburg-Oslo route.
At the end of September 2006, reports surfaced that Pulkovo would be put on the “black list” of airlines banned from entering the country due to security problems. But after the safety deficiencies had been rectified, this step was withdrawn at the beginning of October of the same year. According to a statement by EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot , his authority wants to monitor this airline more closely.
aims
In 2003 the company flew to 34 destinations in 23 countries (mainly Western Europe), and to 12 cities within the Commonwealth of Independent States . It carried around 2.4 million passengers (2003), around two thirds of them on international flights.
fleet
(Status: July 2006)
- 5 Boeing 737-500
- 7 Ilyushin Il-86
- 11 Tupolev Tu-134 A-3
- 7 Tupolev Tu-154 B-2
- 19 Tupolev Tu-154 M
Incidents
- On February 24, 1994, an Antonov An-12BP of Pulkovo Airlines ( aircraft registration number RA-11118 ) crashed while approaching Nalchik Airport , killing all 13 occupants. The accident was attributed to an undetected icing of the horizontal stabilizer , which led to a loss of control after the landing flaps were extended into the end position (see also Pulkovo Airlines flight 9045 ) .
- On July 28, 2002, a crewed Ilyushin Il-86 (RA-86060) crashed shortly after taking off from Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport . Of the 16 occupants, 14 were killed (see also Pulkovo Airlines flight 9560 ) .
- On August 22, 2006, 160 passengers and 10 crew members were killed in the crash of a Tupolev Tu-154M (RA-85185) operated by Pulkovo Airlines on the flight from Anapa to St. Petersburg near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. The reason for this was a pilot's error: When attempting to fly over a thunderstorm which reached a maximum height that was too high for this, the flow stalled , whereupon the machine went into a tailspin (see also Pulkovo Airlines flight 612 ) .
See also
literature
- Jochen K. Beeck: International Airlines. Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-613-02484-5 .
Web links
- Pulkovo Airlines website
- Announcement of the merger of Rossija and Pulkovo ( Memento of March 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- Reports about Pulkovo Airlines (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Accident report AN-12 RA-11118 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on March 31, 2020.
- ^ Accident report IL-86 RA-86060 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on July 31, 2019.