OREANDA-NEWS. January 22, 2007. S7 Airlines and Vladivostok Air have announced the beginning of large-scale cooperation with the goal of increasing economic efficiency on the aviation market, reported the press-centre of S7 Airlines.

The accord between the two companies foresees joint use of aircraft and routes, sales of airline tickets, schedule creation taking into account the interests of transfer passengers, assistance in obtaining the necessary slots for the completion of regular flights, aircraft reservations, and much more.

The beginning of cooperation between S7 Airlines and Vladivostok Air was laid in the spring of 2007, when the first code-sharing accords on routes from Vladivostok, Irkutsk and Sochi to Moscow were signed. In accordance with these accords, the two airlines began exchanging blocks of seats on flights from Vladivostok to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Irkutsk and Novosibirsk in November. Within several months, the number of flights in these directions increased by 17%.

“S7 Airlines is now at the level where its network is expanding in directions that correspond to the so-called hub strategy for the company’s development. And Vladivostok in this regard is one of the most important points on the S7 Airlines map as our hubs are located in Moscow, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Perm, Chelyabinsk and Khabarovsk,” says Anton Yeremin, Deputy General Director of S7 Group (ZAO). “In this connection, the signing of the joint cooperation agreement with Vladivostok Avia is an important stage in the development of S7 Airlines’ activities in Primorye. The unification of the two companies’ efforts is, in my opinion, the only reliable way for transportation to and from the Far East and the aviation transport market as a whole to develop successfully.”

One of the main stages in the expansion of joint cooperation was the beginning of non-stop service between Moscow and Vladivostok late last year. The company uses an Airbus A310 with a capacity of 203 passengers (12 business and 191 economy class seats).