Russia’s IFly builds on its Airbus fleet

IFly commenced commercial operations of its first Airbus A319 in early June of this year (Leonid Faerberg / Transport-Photo)

In line with an expansion strategy of gradually filling the core of its fleet with Airbus aircraft, Russian charter airline IFly is to take delivery of two A330s and an A319 this summer, Ivan Burtin, the airline’s business development director, has revealed to ATO.ru, Russian Aviation Insider’s sister publication.

The Moscow-based leisure airline says it needs the additional capacity to operate flights to its traditional Mediterranean Sea and south-east Asian leisure destinations, as well as for more exotic transatlantic routes to Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

IFly’s fleet currently consists of five Airbus A330-200s, an A330-300, an A319 narrowbody – and a single Boeing 757-200, which was the predominant type in the airline’s fleet before it opted for the Europe-made airliners. The last Boeing will continue flying for the carrier until its lease contract expires, Ivan Burtin explains, adding that the new strategy envisages building up capacity step-by-step by introducing A330 and A320 family aircraft.

The ownership of IFly, which plans to double its traffic this year to nearly 1.5 million passengers from last year’s 746,000, is controlled by Alexander Burtin, who runs the large travel company Tez Tour. He owns a 25 per cent share of the airline, and controls 66 per cent through Galaktika M, of which he is the founder. A nine per cent share of the airline was acquired in spring of this year by Silk Way, which is owned by Hong Kong-based Joy Tour Global Limited, a specialist provider of road transportation services for sight-seeing tours.

In 2017 IFly entered the list of Russia’s Top-20 airlines, having carried 746,000 passengers, up 84.3 per cent on the previous year.

During first four months of this year IFly become second fastest growing Russian carrier recording 152 per cent passengers growth.