Air Bashkortostan stops flying

If yesterday we presented an airline that is starting up in Spain, today we move a few thousand miles East, to report on quite the opposite situation: the demise of Air Bashkortostan (Авиакомпания „Башкортостан“ in Russian).

Not that it was much of a player in the Russian aviation market...Air Bashkortostan, based in Ufa, the capital of the Republic of the same name, was actually owned jointly by the local government (26% of equity) and VIM Avia (74%), a Russian airline one day I would like to write something about (its pink-liveried Boeing 757s were one the first sights I got of Russia when I landed at Domodedovo airport for the first time a few years ago).

Despite the name, it was VIM Avia that was doing the actual flying with a Boeing 757 like this one

The company had only one passenger aircraft, a Boeing 757 that was operated by VIM Avia, that covered the Ufa-Moscow Domodedovo route. So it seems that despite having its own air operator certificate, which was duly withdrawn last 1st of October, Air Bashkortostan was more of a label with some local flavour than anything else and VIM Avia finally pulled the plug.

Curiously enough, the airline was launched to compete with another Ufa-based airline, Bashkiria Airlines, that ceased operations in 2007.

I guess this closure is not going to affect service, neither on the Ufa-Moscow route, as VIM avia might be able to cover the service itself,  nor at Ufa airport, that although not exactly an airline hub, sees quite a decent number of international flights such as Turkish Airlines to Istanbul, CSA to Prague or flyDubai to Dubai. Even Lufthansa was flying to the city just a few years ago.