Azimuth Airlines to receive its ninth Superjet 100 in March

Azimuth’s eight SSJ100LRs feature single-class configuration with seven of them providing 100 seats and one featuring a 103-seat layout (Azimuth Airlines)

Russian regional carrier Azimuth Airlines has signed a lease contract with State Transport Leasing Company (GTLK) for one Superjet 100 (SSJ100) aircraft, with delivery scheduled for March. The airline plans to add two such aircraft to its fleet this year.

The latest Sukhoi Civil-built aircraft is the ninth in Azimuth Airlines’ monotype fleet and comes as the Rostov-based carrier faces an ambitious goal to double its traffic to 1.2 million passengers this year from last year’s 669,000. To reach this target the young airline needs to undergo an aggressive fleet expansion programme whilst increasing its daily utilisation rate to at least nine or 10 hours per aircraft. All of Azimuth’s eight SSJ100s are in the long-range (LR) version and have been leased from GTLK, Russia’s largest lessor.

Launched in September 2017, Azimuth Airlines also plans to climb into the black before the end of this year, Eduard Teplitsky, its executive director, revealed in an interview with Russian Aviation Insider last year.