Aeroflot

Aeroflot (Аэрофлот) (Russian Airlines) has been flying for half a century. It has the IATA designator SU.

Table of contents

1 History 2 Recent developments 3 Other facts of interest 4 External links

History

Aeroflot has a very complex history, and most of it has been shaped by world changes outside the airline's company structure. Aeroflot, like Cubana de Aviaci�n, had to stop flying into the United States once the Cold War began, and many of its records were kept secret by the old Soviet Union.

Nevertheless, Aeroflot during one period grew into what was considered by the World Almanac as the world's largest airline company, with flights mainly concentrating around the Soviet Union but also with a international network that included such countries as the United Kingdom, Spain, Cuba, and People's Republic of China.

During the 1970s and 1980s, and as a cause of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had problems keeping an adequate technological aviation program. This reflected in a few Aeroflot accidents at the time, and it still keeps reflecting as new Eastern Bloc airlines keep buying old Russian equipment and suffering tragedies.

Aeroflot foresaw the need to buy new and more modern equipment, and upon the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991, it immediately started buying Western equipment, starting with Airbus aircraft.

In 1992, Aeroflot became an open joint stock company, and in 1994, it entered the United States market, with flights to New York's JFK International Airport and San Francisco, California. Aeroflot also became a Boeing customer, adding new, just out of the plant Boeing 767 jet planes. After this makeover, Aeroflot's safe flights rate is currently 99.94 percent.

Recent developments

Unlike many Russian companies, Aeroflot has embraced a new era of superior advantages and technology, it has been able to avoid the post-Communism poverty that the country has had to deal with, and has become a safe and reliable international airline whose safety standards match the highest requirements.

Its passenger operations are out of Sheremetyevo International Airport and its cargo operations are out of Domodedovo International Airport. Both airports are located near Moscow, Russia.

Other facts of interest

• Many other airline companies, such as Air Ukraine and others, used to fly under the name of Aeroflot during the Cold War era.

• President Boris Yeltsin usually used Aeroflot for official travel.

External links

• Company web site