Siberia Airlines

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Siberia Airlines (Russian: Авиакомпания "Сибирь", in English it is sometimes incorrectly referred to as Sibir Airlines) is an airline based in Novosibirsk, Russia. It operates scheduled passenger flights to Russian and CIS destinations, as well as international services to China, Germany, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Turkey and United Arab Emirates. Its main bases and hubs are Domodedovo International Airport, Moscow and Tolmachevo Airport (OVB), Novosibirsk, with a further hub at Irkutsk International Airport (IKT), Irkutsk.

Image:Tolmachevo terminal nazionale.jpg

1 Code Data
2 History
3 Incidents and accidents
4 Services
5 Fleet
6 External links

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Code Data

IATA Code: S7
ICAO Code: SBI
TCH Code: С7

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History

Siberia Airlines was established in May 1992 at Ob, a city near Novosibirsk.

It is a successor of former Tolmachevo United Avia Squadron (Russian: Толмачевский объединенный авиаотряд), which was a local subsidiary of Aeroflot.

Tolmachevo United Avia Squadron dates back to 12 July 1957, when it accomplished the first flight from Moscow to Novosibirsk. The first international flight was carried in 1991 to Harbin, China. In 1994 the airline joined IATA. Also that year it became an open joint stock company and had started first international route (as Siberia Airlines) from Novosibirsk to Frankfurt, Germany.

In the first half of the 1990s Siberia Airlines was a medium-size regional airline like many others created from the former Aeroflot. It was mainly focused on domestic flights from Novosibirsk. However, by the end of the decade the airline started aggressive expansion in the Russian domestic market.

Siberia Airlines has grown mainly through a series of mergers with smaller regional airlines. In 1999 it opened Moscow branch in Vnukovo International Airport. The charter flights program from Sheremetyevo International Airport followed in 2000. Also the company created a hub in Irkutsk.

In the start of the 2000s the airline also acquired one of the major Moscow-market players - Vnukovo Airlines, based in Vnukovo International Airport. Thus, in 2001 it became the second-largest carrier in Russia.

Since 2002 all Moscow flights are operated from Domodedovo International Airport, which is the biggest hub of the company so far. The company started a close partnership with Armenian airline Armavia and owns 70% of that company. Siberia Airlines crews operate Armavia A320s on flights from Erevan to Moscow and Novosibirsk.

As of 2003 it was the second-largest airline in Russia. It ranked second in Russian international flights market and first in the domestic market. The airline carried 3.4 million of passengers in 2003. It employs 4950 staff (at January 2005).

In 2005, Siberia Airlines rolled out its new livery, features marketing strategy focusing on the brand "S7".

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Incidents and accidents

October 4, 2001: A Tupolev Tu-154M jet operating as Siberia Airlines flight 1812 (RA-85693) en route from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk crashed into the Black Sea off Sochi after being 'accidentally' hit by a Ukrainian S200 surface-to-air missile, killing all 78 people on board.
August 24, 2004: A Tupolev Tu-154B2 jet operating as Siberia Airlines flight 1047 (RA-85556) en route from Moscow to Sochi exploded and crashed due to a terrorist bombing near Rostov-on-Don, Russia, killing all 46 people on board.

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Services

Siberia Airlines operates the following services (at January 2005):

Domestic scheduled destinations: Chelyabinsk, Chita, Adler/Sochi, Barnaul, Bratsk, Irkutsk, Kazan, Kemerovo, Khabarovsk, Krasnodar, Magnitogorsk, Makhachkala, Mineralnye Vody, Moscow, Murmansk, Nizhnevartovsk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Norilsk, Novokuznetsk, Novosibirsk, Novy Urengoy, Omsk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Rostov, St Petersburg, Tomsk, Ulan-Ude, Vladikavkaz, Vladivostok, Yakutsk and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
International scheduled destinations: Baku, Bangkok, Beijing, Donetsk, Dubai, Dushanbe, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hanover, Khudzhand, Kiev, Kutaisi, Munich, Seoul, Shenyang, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Urumqi and Yerevan.

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Fleet

The Siberia Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft (by August, 2005):

The first western aircraft, Airbus A310, were acquired in 2004. During the 1990s the airline also used Antonov An-24, Antonov An-26 and Tupolev Tu-134.

In summer 2004 during the Farnborough Air Show the company signed a memorandum of intention to purchase 50 of new Sukhoi Russian Regional Jet with the first plane to be delivered in 2007. The final contract is to be signed later this year. It would make Siberia Airlines the launch customer and the largest customer of these planes so far.

In 2005, the airline introduced Boeing 737-500.

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