|
 9 September 2011 saw the first operational flight of the An-148-100E (RA-61709) of the Polyot airline, the second Russian user of the advanced regional airliners made in Voronezh. The 1 h 40 min. flight with 56 passengers on board was conducted from Voronezh to St. Petersburg. The aircraft came back to Chertovitskoye airport in Voronezh on the return flight on the same day. An hour-long An-148-100E service was also launched to Moscow’s Domodedovo airport on 29 September. By then, the carrier’s airliner fleet had been beefed up with another aircraft of the type, RA-61710. As its own crews are trained and the maintenance system is set up in its home airport, Polyot is going to expand its operational network and intensify the operations. Polyot Director General Anatoly Karpov said: “The characteristics of the An-148-100E will enable the company to connect the regions in central Russia with the regional centres in the Urals and Siberia and to launch tourist services to Egypt, Spain, Italy, the UAE, Israel, etc”.
Under the contract signed by Polyot, Sberbank-Leasing and VASO plant last year, the carrier shall lease 10 An-148-100Es. They shall be in the 68-seat layout (8 seats in the business class and 60 in the economy class) but will be able to be converted quickly to the 75-seat single-class layout. Unlike the six An-148-100Bs made in Voronezh, the Polyot-intended planes feature an extended range.
The first An-148-100E (c/n 41-04, RA-61709) first flew in Voronezh in early June of this year and was delivered to Polyot on 20 July 2011. The second aircraft (c/n 41-06, RA-61710) flew for the first time on 6 July and its acceptance report was signed on 31 August 2011. In September, VASO completed another Polyot-destined plane (c/n 41-07, its registration number will be RA-61711) that performed its first flight on 4 October. According to Anatoly Karpov, the company is going to have it on services before year-end and receive the fourth aircraft from VASO in the first quarter of 2012.
Meanwhile, a new An-148 operator appeared in Ukraine as well. On 3 August, Antonov handed over a new production An-148-100B built earlier this year in Kiev to the new customer, Ukraine International Airlines (UIA). The carrier’s aircraft fleet, which has been made up of Boeing planes only (according to UIA’s official website, it comprises 19 Boeing 737s in various versions), was extended by the second production-standard An-148 built in Kiev (reg. UR-NTD, c/n 01-10). It first flew in Kiev on 13 January 2011. In September, UIA received another An-148 (reg. UR-NTA, c/n 01-01) that had been flown by the Aerosvit airline from June 2009 to August 2011. Aerosvit also operated the first production An-148 made in Kiev (c/n 01-09, reg. UR-NTC) since May 2010 till September 2011. This plane is seemed to start its operations with UIA too. |
