The history of Aeroflot can be traced back to 9 February 1923, when the Council of Labour and Defence passed a resolution to create the Civil Air Fleet of the USSR, amalgamating all pioneer airlines to form Dobrolet on 25 March 1923.[1][2]: 119 Operations started on 15 July 1923 linking Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, becoming the first regular services of the country.[2]: 119 The name Aeroflot was adopted in 1932 after the reorganisation of Dobrolet.[3] By the end of the 1930s the carrier had the following routes in operation: Kharkiv–Kyiv, Kharkiv–Odesa, Kyiv–Odesa, Kyiv–Rostov–Mineralnye Vody, Kyiv–Simferopol, Moscow–Leningrad, Moscow–Minsk, Moscow–Odesa, Moscow–Sochi, Moscow–Kuybishev, Moscow–Baku–Tbilisi, Moscow–Simferopol, Moscow–Stalingrad–Astrakhan, Tbilisi–Sukhumi, Tbilisi–Yerevan, Kutasi–Mestia and Sukhumi–Sochi.[4] Aeroflot's route network was 31,500 kilometres (19,600 miles) long by 1950.[5]: 44
By April 1965, the carrier operated an extensive domestic and international network that included Accra, Amsterdam, Bamako, Brussels, Cairo, Conakry, Copenhague, Delhi, Djakarta, Havana, Helsinki, Kabul, Karachi, Khartoum, London, Paris, Rabat, Rangoon, Stockholm and Vienna; routes to Algiers, Baghdad, Brazzaville, Colombo, Nicosia, Teheran and Tunis, all of them inaugurated in 1964, were also flown.[3] In March 1970, Aeroflot had amassed a route network that was 600,000 kilometres (370,000 miles) long, a quarter of which covered international destinations. At this time, the carrier had agreements with 59 countries but it only served 54 of them, including 55 destinations.[6]: 463
Once the world's largest carrier,[7]: 1389 Aeroflot did not restrict its operations to the transportation of passengers, but monopolised all civil aviation activities within the Soviet Union. Apart from passenger transportation that covered a domestic network of over 3,600 villages, towns and cities, activities undertaken by the airline that were labelled as "non-transport tasks" included agricultural work, ice reconnaissance, anti-forest fire patrol, and aeromedical services, among many others.[7]: 1389 [8] The former monopolistic Aeroflot – Soviet Airlines entered a new era following the dissolution of the USSR, when it shrank dramatically as it was split into several regional companies throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States in mid–1992. It was gradually reorganised and renamed Aeroflot – Russian International Airlines (ARIA).[5]: 42 In mid-2000, the name of the company was changed to simply Aeroflot – Russian Airlines.[9]
At March 2000, Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport was the carrier's main base; the airport was also one of its hubs, along with Novosibirsk, St Petersburg and Vladivostok, from where it operated scheduled international services to Accra, Amman, Amsterdam, Ankara, Antalya, Athens, Baku, Bangkok, Barcelona, Beijing, Beirut, Belgrade, Berlin, Bishkek, Bourgas, Bratislava, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Cairo, Calcutta, Casablanca, Chicago, Colombo, Conakry, Copenhagen, Cotonou, Dakar, Damascus, Delhi, Dhaka, Dnipropetrovsk, Dubai, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Geneva, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Hanoi, Hanover, Havana, Helsinki, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Jakarta, Karachi, Karlovy Vary, Kathmandu, Kaunas, Kuala Lumpur, Kyiv, Lagos, Larnaca, Lima, Lisbon, Ljubljana, London, Los Angeles, Luanda, Luleå, Luxembourg, Lyon, Madrid, Mahe Island, Male, Malta, Manila, Mexico City, Miami, Milan, Montreal, Mumbai, Munich, Nagoya, New York, Nice, Niigata, Osaka, Oslo, Paphos, Paris, Prague, Riga, Rome, Rovaniemi, Salzburg, San Francisco, São Paulo, Seattle, Seoul, Shanghai, Shannon, Sharjah, Shenyang, Simferopol, Singapore, Skopje, Sofia, Stockholm, Tbilisi, Tehran, Thessaloniki, Tivat, Tokyo, Toronto, Tripoli, Tromsø, Tunis, Ulaanbaatar, Varna, Venice, Vienna, Vilnius, Warsaw, Washington, Yerevan, Zagreb and Zurich, and domestic flights to Adler/Sochi, Anapa, Arkhangelsk, Belgorod, Bratsk, Ekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Kaliningrad, Khabarovsk, Krasnodar, Murmansk, Naryan-Mar, Nizhnevartovsk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Omsk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Rostov, Samara, Volgograd and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.[10]
Following is a list of destinations the carrier flies to, as of December 2023[update], according to its passenger and cargo schedules.[11] Terminated destinations once served by Aeroflot within the post-1992 era are also included.