Russian airlines round-up: landing at the wrong airport, wrong city, wrong country!

It wouldn't be the first time that a commercial aircraft has landed at the wrong airport...I, actually found myself in this situation some years ago when night flying restrictions at Luton combined with a delayed flight meant we ended up at Stansted rather than our intended destination or more recently landing at Reus, instead of Barcelona.

But passengers on Vueling's flight from Barcelona to the Russian city of St.Peterburg landed in a different country altogether, since, apparently, someone found out mid-flight that they did not have the right permits to land at Pulkovo airport. The aircraft landed in Helsinki instead. And from there, people had to take the train to the city of the Neva...looks quite close on a map, but it is actually a 4h train journey!

In unrelated news, a frequent visitor of this blog, the Superjet, has made news again, since another of its Russian operators, Yakutia Airlines, has also experienced some technical issues, so it has sent it back for repairs.

And today we finish with a curiosity of the Russian airline industry: half of Aeroflot's profits come from...Siberian overflight fees!

How's that? Airlines flying from Europe to East Asia have to pay a transit fee when flying over Russian territory, and most of this money, some $200 million, end in Aeroflot's pockets. How's that for ancillary revenue?

Actually, this might change as the EU is negotiating a new overflight agreement with Russia, or so was expected...until this issue became a bargaining chip in the ETS carbon emissions row...

By the way, if you wish to explore what is the shortest route from Europe to Asia, check out this blog post about the Grand Circle route.