OREANDA-NEWS. March 27, 2008. S7 Airlines, Russia’s largest air carrier by number of transported passengers on domestic aviation routes, will switch to its summer flight schedule on 30 March 2008 and it will remain in effect through 25 October 2008.

In the new season, S7 Airlines will focus on expanding existing routes, including new ones, and increase the frequency of flights while continuing to expand its route network and offer the most convenient transfers possible. In the summer period S7 Airlines will make regular flights to 97 cities in Russia and abroad.

One of the new routes of the season will be Russia’s first direct flight from Moscow to Dublin, Ireland, beginning 27 April. Three flights a week will be operated on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays on comfortable, modern Airbus A319 airliners.

As part of S7 Airlines’ strategy of strengthening its presence in the regions and expanding new international routes from the regions, it will open a whole series of new flights during this season.

Four new flights will be operated from Omsk: Omsk-Khudzhand (Tajikistan), Omsk-Dushanbe (Tajikistan), Omsk-St. Petersburg and Omsk-Irkutsk-Vladivostok. A second flight is being added from Omsk to Moscow and back, and the seasonal flight Omsk-Hanover (Germany) will be expanded to year-round.

S7 Airlines now offers flights from Moscow to Chisinau (Moldova) and back 7 days a week, up from 2 days a week.

The S7 Airlines summer schedule includes a new flight from Sochi to Kiev (Ukraine), and the Sochi-St. Petersburg schedule is being resumed. There are now 5 flights a week to St. Petersburg, up from 2 flights a week last summer.

The numbers of flights on the most popular domestic routes have also been increased from last summer, which means more convenience for passengers.

Our geographic reach is expanding from our base airport—Tolmachevo—as we add a new Novosibirsk-Kiev flight, renew the Novosibirsk-Bishkek flight with frequency of one flight a week, add a fifth flight (per day) on the Novosibirsk-Moscow route, and begin to operate Novosibirsk-Beijing (China) flights on a daily basis (up from five times a week).

All S7 Airlines flights to Beijing will be serviced in the comfortable new Terminal III of Capital Beijing Airport, which was opened in late February 2008 especially for the Summer Olympics. Today, S7 Airlines is the only Russian air carrier that is serviced in the new terminal. The addition of flights on this route is associated with the large flow of tourists to China, as well as through China to Southeast Asia. Thanks to the transition to the new transport hub, S7 Airlines offers comfortable conditions for transfer passengers, for whom a special zone has been created at the airport.

S7 Airlines has already begun to sell tickets on its summer flights. All types of fares are available to passengers, so travelers who plan their trips in advance canget their tickets at lower prices.

Especially for the summer season, the company will add to its fleet four new imported Airbus A320 airplanes. The first A320, which the company will receive from the Toulouse, France plant on 28 March, will begin to fly the Moscow-Barnaul and Moscow-Krasnodar routes in April. The other three airplanes as they are commissioned will transport passengers from Moscow to Kemerovo, Sochi, Novosibirsk and Frankfurt (Germany), and from Novosibirsk to Vladivostok and Beijing (China).

The new aircraft will replace the Tu-154, which had previously been used on these routes. In addition, S7 Airlines will use A319 airplanes in the new season, which the airline obtained as part of a strategic fleet renewal program. Seventeen Airbus A319 airplanes were manufactured in 1999-2005.