Russian airline UTair retires its last Tu-154 and Yak-42 airliners. The move had already expected for some time, as the Russian airline is in the middle of an ambitious fleet renewal programme that, as we already reported, will see it add brand-new Airbus A320-family aircraft and Sukhoi SSJ100 Superjets.

In any case, the Tu-154 will remain an iconic aircraft, a symbol of another era...although, unbeliveably, the Tu-154 assembly line did not close down until last February, after 45 years in production!

UTair is not alone in retiring iconic aircraft after long years of service, in the US, Delta Airlines is flying its last DC-9 commercial service next January 6th and Dutch airline KLM is also retiring its MD-11s in October 2014.