Transaero Airlines has singed a deal to lease 12 new Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

The airline already operates a number of the type, and plans to start taking delivery of the new aircraft from 2015. Transaero plans to operate these jetliners both on domestic and international routes.

In 1998 Transaero Airlines became the first in Europe and the second air carrier in the world to receive Boeing 737-700.

The last Tupolev TU-154 aircraft to be built will be handed over today, following a production run which started in 1970.

The Russian airliner, which closely resembled the Boeing 727, was designed in the late 1960s and went on to operate with airlines across the former Soviet Union, Middle East, and Far East. Around 1,000 examples were built over the for decades since production started.

Now, the Aviakor aircraft factory in Samara will deliver the final Tupolev Tu-154 airliner to the Defense Ministry in a ceremony attended by representatives of the Defense Ministry, the Tupolev aircraft design bureau and the Aviakor aviation plant.

The Aviakor factory, and numerous others around Russia, will continue to service and repair TU-154 aircraft for a number of years to come.

Have you flown on a TU-154? Why not share your stories below. If you still want to fly on one, why not find out which airlines are still operating passenger variants and where they fly in our Last Chance to Fly ebook? Download here.

Transaero Airlines has announced a further mutual partnership with Moscow Vnukovo Airport.

The airport recently opened its new Terminal A, which is one of the most modern and advanced terminals in Russia.

Transaero already operates to 11 destinations from Vnukovo, and will add 17 new routes from the airport this year, including Miami, New York, Frankfurt, London, and Tel Aviv.

A maintenance facility was opened by Transaero for its Boeing 747 and 777 aircraft at Vnukovo last year, and it plans a new transfer centre for its passengers to connect between flights.

Vnukovo claims to be one of the easiest of the city’s airports to get to due to its close proximity to the main ring road and railway system.

Aegean Airlines continue to expand, and have announced six new routes that they will be starting from Summer 2013.

These routes include:

Athens – Baku from 28 May
Athens – Berlin Tegel from 30 April
Athens – Lyon from 20 June – 13 September
Athens – Manchester from 25 May
Athens – St. Petersburg from 29 May
Athens – Warsaw from 2 April

All flights operate with Airbus A320 aircraft.

In a blow to Virgin Atlantic, rights to fly between the UK and Moscow have been granted to easyJet, with flights expected to begin in March 2013.

Under the bilateral agreement between Russia and the UK, two British airlines are permitted to fly between the two countries. Since British Airways’ takeover of BMI, there has been a vacant position as the second airline. Virgin Atlantic and easyJet were battling head-to-head for the rights, and today it has been announced that easyJet have been successful.

easyJet will fly from London Gatwick to Moscow Domodedovo twice daily using Airbus A320 aircraft. The CAA board commented ”We concluded that easyJet’s proposal would introduce a distinctly different product [to British Airways] as well as satisfying and stimulating consumer demand that is currently under served, in particular for people who prefer or are content to use Gatwick.”

For the enthusiast this bodes very well. Moscow’s airports are still a rich picking ground of older Russian aircraft, often laid up in storage, and the city also holds the fantastic MAKS Air Show every other year.

This has tempted me to look for some cheap flights next summer for the next MAKS event. easyJet are advertising return prices as low as £125.

 A good friend of mine, Andrew Solum, and British Airways‘ Head of UK & Ireland Sales, Richard Tams, are about to embark upon a fantastic journey in the hope of raising money for charity.

Their target is to raise £20,000 for the Comic Relief Flying Start charity, supported by British Airways and aimed at improving the lives of countless children every year.

Their challenge? Well, they’ve got to get around the world in seven days, starting in New York on 15th September, and using every Oneworld airline partner.

The journey will start with American Airlines from New York to Chicago then on to the Tokyo Narita international hub of Japan Airlines.

The following day they will fly with Japan Airlines from Tokyo to the Hong Kong home of Cathay Pacific and on September 17 undertake a three-flight schedule from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur with Cathay Pacific, Kuala Lumpur to Singapore with Malaysia Airlines, which is on track to join oneworld at the turn of the year. They will then travel on from Singapore to London Heathrow with Qantas arriving early on September 18.

British Airways will carry them on to Amman, base of Royal Jordanian.

On September 19 they will fly from Amman to Frankfurt with Royal Jordanian, then with airberlin to Germany’s capital city.

On September 20, they will take to the air again with airberlin to Frankfurt, then off with LAN to Madrid. From its base at the Spanish capital, Iberia will then carry them to the Moscow hub of S7, landing early on September 21, before a swift transfer to S7 for a flight to St. Petersburg.

The following day (September 22) they will begin the last leg of their journey heading with Finnair from St Petersburg to its own Helsinki home then on to Heathrow to connect on to their final flight, a British Airways jet from London to New York arriving at 8.55pm local time.

In total they will cover just over 30,000 miles, flying along the way on every oneworld member airline and via 11 of the alliance’s major hubs.

Tams said: “I’ve done a lot of flying in my time at British Airways, but never so many destinations in such a short period. We’ll be going through 16 airports, flying on ten different aircraft types and visiting 11 countries on 12 airlines. We won’t even have time to stop and enjoy the views!

Mr Solum, a management consultant and oneworld Emerald top tier frequent flyer, said “it will be tough going on standby staff tickets with no guarantee where we’ll be seated, but at the end of the day, every penny we raise will make a difference to a child – and that is really our driving force for this challenge.”

Tams added “We’re enormously grateful to our oneworld partners for supporting our challenge – it’s a great reflection of the reach the alliance has. I’d also like to thank our hotel partners in this, the Global Hotel Alliance, Starwood and Marriott.”

“The travel trade have also already been really supportive and we’ve already hit £8,000+ of our target but we really want to reach at least £20,000 so we’re asking everyone to dig deep and help us out. Anyone can pledge money at:

http://donate.ba-flyingstart.com/funraiser/roundtheoneworld.”

The money raised will all go directly to Flying Start, the global charity partnership between British Airways and Comic Relief UK. It will help to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of children living in the UK and in some of the poorest countries across the world. The aim of the charity is to help create lasting change by giving children and their families the chance to start supporting themselves.

The intrepid travellers will be blogging their adventures and experiences, so stay tuned for further details!

Russian airline Transaero has been focusing on Italy in its latest expansion plans.

It recently inaugurated flights between Moscow Vnukovo and Rome Fiumicino, which now runs 5x weekly using Boeing 737 aircraft. The maiden flight was operated by one of the airline’s Boeing 777-200 aircraft as part of the publicity surrounding the event.

Additionally, Transaero will begin flights from Moscov Vnukovo to Venice, St. Petersburg to Rome Fiumicino, and St. Petersburg to Milan Malpensa from tomorrow.

Then, from 30th June, it will begin flights from Moscow Vnukovo to Milan Malpensa.

The airline is hoping to drastically increase its presence in the Italian market, and with its ever expanding fleet of modern aircraft, you will start to see more and more of their colours at Italian airports.

Yakutia Air is to re-establish an air link between Alaska and eastern Russia.

The route, from Anchorage Ted Stevens International to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, will operate once weekly (on a Thursday morning) from 12 July.

The airline will operate a Boeing 737-700 on the route, but has the option to upgrade to a Boeing 757-200 if demand is sufficient.

Links between Alaska and eastern Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula are long standing, and a number of airlines have flown the route in the past, including Alaska Airlines.

Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner World Tour continues with a bunch of new dates and airports over the next couple of weeks.

You can see the aircraft at the following destinations:

26-31 March – Santiago, Chile (including display at FIDAE Air Show)
1-2 April – Shannon, Ireland for maintenance
2-3 April – Baku, Azerbaijan
3-6 April – Moscow, Russia
6-11 April – Istanbul, Turkey
11-13 April – Madrid, Spain

The aircraft will be visiting airline customers, supply customers and demonstrating to potential customers.

Moscow Domodedovo Airport is probably the most modern in Russia, and is attracting a lot of airlines. As Russian airlines modernise, they are taking on a lot of Western aircraft types, and the older Russian types are being withdrawn.

However, at Domodedovo it’s still possible to see a good array or Russian types in storage.  Paul Mitchell has recently been on a trip to the airport, and compiled a list of what you can see stored there. You can find the list under Storage Lists at the top of the page, or click this link: http://www.airportspotting.com/storage-lists/moscow-domodedovo/

We’ll try to keep this list updated, so please comment below with your updates or send an e-mail!