When I was in Moscow this last September, I got to know a bit better one a Russian airline that had always intrigued me, and not only because it flies to some very interesting destinations. I am talking about UTair.

What sets UTair apart?

UTair is, actually, not just an airline, but a group of companies providing a number of aviation-related services. UTair was founded during Soviet times in the "oil city" of Tyumen and until 2002 was known as Tyumenaviatrans. And, although the UTair of today is quite a diversified company, these West Siberian origins, in the most important oil-producing region of Russia, have profoundly marked the structure, network and operations of the UTair of today.

UTair's home is in Western Siberia. No wonder that, although it is Russia's third largest airline, UTair remains relatively unknown outside Russia. In that region, UTair operates many air links to isolated and remote communities under public service contracts. In many of these routes UTair is the only operator (and pretty much the only link to the rest of the World!).

Not only that, but UTAir also plays a key role in supplying the oil industry spread all over the West Siberian basin of the Ob river and neighbouring regions. Hence, its strong helicopter operation, one of UTAir's dinstinctive features, as UTair is actually the largest civilian helicopter operator by some measures!...but this is something we are going to explain in detail in a moment...

Maybe because of these origins, serving scattered communities across Russia, far from the centralizing influence of Moscow, that UTair has developed quite a decentralized network structure, with plenty of point-to-point routes across the fours corners of Russia. Its operations are no longer constrained to Siberia, but it operates plenty of routes in the European side of the country, including quite a busy base at Moscow's Vnukovo airport, the Russian Far East and internationally. For example, UTair has been quite succesful in opening new routes between Russian regional airports and some European destinations, like for example from Rostov-on-Don, in Southern Russia, to Frankfurt-am-Main, in Germany.

It has also signed an agreement with Transaero that allows both airlines to coordinate some of its operations at Moscow's Vnukovo airport, facilitating passenger transfers between the UTair and Transaero, while taking advantge of the complementariety of their respective domestic and international networks.

Fleet renewal underway

UTair has been growing fast, along the general growth of Russia's air travel market. No wonder it has quite an ambitious fleet renewal plan currently under way. Before the end of this year the last of UTair's Tu-154s are going to be retired as the new A321s, B737s and Sukhoi Superjets SSJ100 it already has on order, start to arrive.