Pobeda Airlines to take four aircraft within a week

LCC Pobeda is to proceed with fleet built-up, despite COVID-19 crisis (Pulkovo airport)

Despite the ongoing crisis of the airline industry brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s only budget carrier is proceeding with its fast-pace fleet expansion programme. Having just taken delivery of its 31st Boeing 737-800 earlier this week, Pobeda Airlines announced it was expecting to add three more of the type within the next several days. The LCC’s monotype fleet will thus reach 34 units before the end of July. According to Boeing’s statistics Pobeda continues to lead the market in terms of Boeing 737-800 utilization rate. Its aircraft spend on average 15 hours in the air per day.

Pobeda Airlines started gradual recovery of its domestic flight programme on June 1. The airline, which is part of Russia’s state-controlled Aeroflot Group, currently operates almost 200 daily flights across the country. “With the arrival of the new aircraft we’ll be able to add about 30 more daily flights,” Andrey Kalmykov, Pobeda’s general director revealed. “For August, we have planed new routes from Saint Petersburg to Ulyanovsk and from Moscow to Izhevsk,” he added. This summer the LCC operates 85 routes within Russia.

According to Aeroflot Group’s new strategy approved earlier this month, Pobeda is expected to serve between 55 and 65 million passengers annually by 2028, using a fleet of 170 Boeing 737s. To build such a big fleet the budget airline is to take the B737-800s currently operated by sister airlines, including Aeroflot’s 50 aircraft.