OREANDA-NEWS. November 01, 2008. S7 Airlines, Russia’s largest air carrier by number of passengers on domestic routes, offers its passengers modern comfortable A320 airliners on its Novosibirsk—Khabarovsk—Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Novosibirsk—Vladivostok—Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky routes, reported the press-centre of S7 Airlines.

The company purchased the new airliners directly from the Airbus plant in Toulouse, France in 2008.

S7 Airlines is the first airline to operate flights to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on airliners of this type. Flights were previously operated on Soviet Tu-154s.

This means that all S7 Airlines passengers can enjoy more comfortable travel. Business-class passengers can also now experience the company’s new level of service.

The phasing out of Soviet-made airplanes also means that S7 Airlines has begun to operate flights on modern Airbus and Boeing airliners to all the Russian cities where Soviet Tu-154s and Il-86s previously flew. Flights on the new foreign airplanes will be operated to Norilsk, Tomsk, Vladivostok, Kazan, Irkutsk and other cities. By the end of 2008 the Tu-154 will be replaced on the routes to Vladikavkaz, Anapa and Mineralnye Vody—where S7 Airlines is still operating flights on Soviet airplanes.

S7 Airlines’ A320 airliner is a modern narrow-body airplane designed to carry 164 passengers in eight business-class and 156 economy-class seats. Every new airplane has a spacious arrangement of the passenger compartment with a new seat design and interior in bright tones. These airplanes have more spacious compartments for carry-on baggage, which creates additional convenience for passengers and reduces boarding and deplaning times.

In 2008 S7 Airlines began to operate a Boeing 737-800NG, the most popular modification of the Boeing 737 Next Generation, which has earned a reputation for high reliability, high fuel-efficiency, and low overall cost of operation.

And in October 2008 the company began to operate a Boeing 767-300ER long-distance airliner. The airliner has a spacious passenger compartment that makes long-distance flights as comfortable as can be. Its 222 seats in economy class are arranged according to a 2-3-2 scheme. The business-class section has 18 seats, which are also arranged in 3 rows of 2 seats each. During long flights, S7 Airlines will offer passengers two hot meals, beverages and travel sets.

In November of this year the Boeing 767-300ER will be flown regularly from Moscow to Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and Yerevan, Armenia. In the future the airplane will replace the Airbus A310 on the long-distance Moscow-Bangkok, Thailand and Moscow-Vladivostok routes.
By the end of 2008 S7 Airlines will also add to its fleet two Boeing 737-400s and two long-range Boeing 767-300ERs. And in 2009 deliveries will begin of another 25 new airliners of the Airbus A320 family.