Aeroflot to create «hard» low-cost carrier with seats like those in commuter trains

The Aeroflot airline company’s General Director Vitaly Savelyev has announced the airline company’s plans to create a "hard" low-cost carrier that will allow reduction of ticket prices by 40%, Vedomosti reports.

«It will be a hard product, the seats will be like those in Elektrichkas - they will not recline, and they will be firmly planted. It will be strict with luggage. Ticket booking will be like everywhere else, but only through the Internet,», – Savelyev said at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

According to him, the low-cost airline company will be created «from scratch» and it will not be «a piece of Aeroflot» because everything will be focused on the primary objective of reducing the cost of transportation. He added that the company would be «widely available in central Russia».

In late August, Aeroflot announced that its board of directors approved allocation of funds for creation of a low-cost airline company as early as 2013, but it did not specify the amount of funds allocated. The company plans to start operations as early as 2014. Deputy Transport Minister Valery Okulov said that the low-cost airline company’s preliminary network of routes has already been created. According to him, the route network will include the routes with the highest passenger traffic, such as the routes from Moscow to St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Sochi, Samara, and Yekaterinburg.

Adapted from CTS