Ural Airlines

IATA ICAO Callsign U6 SVR SVERDLOVSK AIR
Founded	1943; 80 years ago (1943) (as part of Aeroflot)
Commenced operations	1993
Hubs	Moscow–Domodedovo Yekaterinburg-Koltsovo
Secondary hubs	Moscow–Sheremetyevo Moscow–Zhukovsky Saint Petersburg
Focus cities	Chelyabinsk Irkutsk Krasnodar Mineralnye Vody Samara Novosibirsk-Tolmachevo Ufa
Frequent-flyer program	Travelling Club "Wings"
Fleet size	52
Destinations	101
Headquarters	Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia
Key people	Sergei Skuratov (General Director)
Website	uralairlines.ru

Ural Airlines (Russian: Ура́льские авиали́нии, Ural’skiye avialinii) is an airline based in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia,^[1] that operates scheduled and chartered domestic and international flights out of Koltsovo International Airport. In 2018, the company transported nine million passengers.

Overview

The airline was founded in 1943 as Sverdlovsk State Air Enterprises, and later became part of Aeroflot, the Soviet state airline, being in charge of Yekaterinburg Airport. Following the split-up of Aeroflot, Ural Airlines became a joint stock company incorporated under the laws of the Russian Federation on 28 December 1993, and the airline business was separated from the airport.

In 2010, Ural Airlines retired all of its Antonov An-24s, Ilyushin Il-86s and Tupolev Tu-154B-2s.^[2] The airline's Tupolev Tu-154M, in 164-seat two-class configuration, was retired on October 16, 2011.^[3]

Ural Airlines has 3348 employees.^[4]

As of 2012, the airline also planned to buy a training complex for the Airbus A330-300.^[5]

In 2017, Skytrax gave Ural Airlines 3 stars, which made it the fourth airline with three stars in Russia and CIS after S7 Airlines, Uzbekistan Airlines and Air Moldova.^[6]

Currently, main hubs of Ural Airlines are Moscow-Domodedovo and Yekaterinburg. Ural Airlines has plans to increase its number of hubs, by developing hubs at Moscow-Sheremetyevo and Moscow-Zhukovsky.^[7]

In 2020, flights commenced to Russian-controlled Crimea.

Corporate affairs

A former Ural Airlines Antonov An-12, the airline's first aircraft type after their independence from Aeroflot

A former Ural Airlines Tupolev Tu-154B-2

A meal aboard Ural Airlines

A million passengers per year was first achieved in 2006. Since then, the airline and its passenger numbers have both grown. In 2013, the airline transported 4.419 million passengers, the sixth most in Russia that year.^[8]

Destinations

Codeshare agreements

Ural Airlines has codeshare agreements with the following airlines:^[16]

Fleet

Ural Airlines Airbus A321-200

Ural Airlines Airbus A321LR

Current fleet

As of July 2022^[update], the Ural Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft:^[21][22]

Ural Airlines also started considering updating its fleet with newer Airbus A320neo family or Boeing 737 Next Generation and is still considering purchasing Airbus A330.^{[citation needed]} It took delivery of its first Airbus A320neo in August 2019.^[26] The airline also considered purchasing Irkut MC-21s, but the plans were probably withdrawn.^[27]

Retired fleet

Accidents and incidents

• On 15 August 2019, Ural Airlines Flight 178, an Airbus A321 registered as VQ-BOZ, was scheduled to fly from Zhukovsky International Airport to Simferopol. 226 passengers and 7 crew were on board. The aircraft suffered a bird strike shortly after takeoff and made an emergency landing in a cornfield less than 3 nautical miles (5.6 km; 3.5 mi) from the runway^[28] with its landing gear up.^[29] Although 74 passengers sought medical treatment, only 1 major injury occurred, and all passengers survived.^[30]