Tinkoff Airlines unveiled: plastic rather than metal

Russian magnate Oleg Tinkoff created some agitation on the Russian-language blogosphere when he started talking about his plans for Tinkoff Airlines.

As Tinkoff, who made his fortune in the brewing business (by the way, a topic for another day should be this constant link between breweries, airlines and strong personalities!) and has sometimes been likened to the "Russian Richard Branson" it was not too difficult to imagine that a new airlines might soon be flying over the Russian skies...Well, not quite!

The mystery was finally unveiled: in reality Tinkoff All Airlines is a new credit card card, issued by Tinkoff's own bank, Tinkoff Credit Systems, that lets you collect frequent flier miles with multiple airlines in addition to providing a number of other advantages to its users.

It might not be an airline after all, but there's one thing that Tinkoff shares with Richard Branson: marketing mastery! Hats off for the great marketing plot, since hardly ever has a credit card launch generated so much excitement!