Ural Airlines

Ural Airlines - is an airline based in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, 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.The airline's Tupolev Tu-154M, in 164-seat two-class configuration, was retired on October 16, 2011.

Ural Airlines has 3348 employees. The technical base of the airline is one of the biggest and most modern in Russia. Its technical equipment and experienced engineers allow Ural Airlines to provide necessary services in-house. In 2012, the airline opened its training complex for pilots. The system of training for Airbus A320 was 7.5 million euro. The complex included the construction works too, with 9 million euros.

The airline also plans to buy the training complex for the Airbus A330-300.

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.

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.In 2020, flights commenced to Russian-controlled Crimea.