Air Transport

Aeroflot is devising a new scheme to establish an all-charter division after dropping plans to take over Continental Airways, writes Tom Zaitsev.

The Russian carrier’s management had planned to hand down a batch of its older aircraft types to Continental Airways and fashion it into a charter specialist. But it backed out of the deal with the privately owned operator due to high transaction costs.

“It turned out to be more economical to run a non-scheduled business in-house than spin it off to a standalone entity,” says the airline.

Last year Aeroflot halved its fleet of Ilyushin Il-86s. It will transfer the remaining six to a charter arm, to be set up this year.