Russian airline Orient Avia and one of the country's leading freight carriers, East Line Air, are to merge. The merged airline will concentrate operations at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport.
Orient, which flies to Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk in the Far East and Kaunas in Lithuania, from Moscow Sheremetyevo airport, operates four Ilyushin Il-62s and one Tupolev Tu-134.
Domodedovo-based East Line has a fleet of 51 freighters, primarily consisting of Ilyushin Il-76s and Antonov An-12s, and also operates some charters with Ilyushin Il-86s and Tupolev Tu-154s. It is considering acquiring McDonnell Douglas DC-10 freighters.
Orient flew around 200,000 passengers in 1996, rating it as Russia's sixth-largest passenger operator. East Line carried about 80,000t of cargo in 1996 and recently began using the new cargo terminal at Domodedovo, where it invested some $30 million in 1996 to develop the airport's infrastructure.
Orient has permission from the US Federal Aviation Administration to fly to the USA, and is Russia's official carrier on Vladivostok-Singapore and Moscow to Santo-Domingo routes.
Source: Flight International
