OREANDA-NEWS. April 03, 2015. The Gift of Life charity fund has been among the main UTair social partners since 2008. Since that time more than 1,500 children and their parents have flown at special rates to medical facilities. In 2014 alone UTair transported Gift of Life fund patients and their chaperones from Fergana, Makhachkala, Mineralnye Vody, Yoshkar-Ola, Vladikavkaz, Kurgan, Nizhnevartovsk, Dushanbe, Novosibirsk, Nalchik, Magas, Belgorod, Ulyanovsk and Lviv.

UTair-Passenger Airlines President Oleg Semenov noted that UTair has played a role in securing the right of Russian citizens to access advanced medical care for many years. “Special airfares for children with life threatening diseases and their chaperons allow families from the most distant regions of the country to afford transport to medical facilities in major Russian and foreign cities,” said Mr. Semenov.

“Affordable airfare is literally a gateway to cure for many our patients. Over the years UTair has supported important Gift of Life fund activities such as Barretstown Camp in Ireland and the World Children's Winners’ Games,” said Gift of Life fund founders Chulpan Khamatova and Dina Korzun. “We sincerely thank UTair for the help the airline has given to our children!”

UTair-Passenger Airlines President Oleg Semenov also mentioned that besides partnership with Gift of Life, UTair is also partners with Maria’s Children Arts Center and the Spread Your Wings Children’s Social Aid Charity Fund. In 2014 UTair and Eldorado co-organized the Air Marathon for a Good Cause, a national blood drive initiated by LG Electronics to support a program for the development of massive scale voluntary blood and blood components donation developed by the Russian Ministry of Healthcare and the Federal Biomedical Agency. Over 450 people, including employees of partner companies, participated in Donor Days organized in five cities along the UTair route network. Talks on the importance of corporate participation in blood donating were held for 1,100 students at leading universities in each city participating in the project.

 UTair Aviation is the core enterprise of UTair Group consisting of companies performing aircraft operations with fixed and rotary wing aircraft as well as enterprises offering MRO, personnel training, flight services and air transportation sales services. The Group includes UTair-Express, UTair-Helicopter services, Turuhan, Vostok Airlines, Helisur, UTair Europe, UTair South Africa, UTair India, TS-Technik, UTair-Engineering, Ural Aviation Services, UTG and other enterprises. In 2014 UTair Group aircraft transported 11,204,598 passengers to more than 110 destinations, including 50 unique ones.

The Gift of Life Charity Fund was founded in 2006 by actresses Dina Korzun and Chulpan Khamatova. Fund objectives are focused on raising funds for the treatment, cure and rehabilitation of children diagnosed with oncologic and hematologic diseases, providing help to oncologic and hematologic hospitals for children and young adults, drawing public attention to problems of children with diseases, aiding the development of voluntary blood donation, providing social and psychological help to children with diseases and assisting groups of volunteers working in partnership with children's oncologic hospitals.