Russian low-cost carrier Pobeda is to proceed with opening a London link from St Petersburg next month, but it appears to have abandoned plans to serve the UK from Kaliningrad over a personal-data hitch.

The airline is promoting St Petersburg-London Stansted flights from 12 October, with its reservations system indicating four-times weekly services.

Pobeda had previously been granted rights to operate to London from both St Petersburg and Kaliningrad.

But no Kaliningrad service appears on its reservations engine, and its social media feed initially indicated to customers that the flights had been “cancelled” as a result of “low demand”.

However, a subsequent message to passengers states that the airline has been forced to scrap the service – due to operate from 23 October – owing to “technical inability” to comply with personal data requirements from the UK border authorities at Stansted.

Source: Cirium Dashboard