The new Rossiya Airlines takes off

True to its role as "St.Petersburg airline", one of Rossyia's aircraft is painted in the colours of the local football club, Zenit. Picture: Rossyia Airlines

This is not a "new" airline in the strict sense of the word, but the materialization of Aeroflot's new strategy, that has merged its Orenair and Donavia subsidiaries with, also 100%-owned St.Petersburg-based Rossiya.

Orenair and Donavia have already transferred all their aircraft to Rossiya, although Rossiya's website is still not updated to reflect the news at the time of writing this post. 

The first flight of the new amalgamated airline took place already on the 27th of this month, coinciding with the start of the summer season. The network will include some 81 destinations, 54 of them domestic. Although Rossiya will be based in St.Petersburg and its focus will be on routes out of the Neva capital and other Russian regional cities, it is remarkable that it will also operate some flights out of Moscow Vnukovo, complementing Aeroflot's own mainline operation at Sheremetyevo.