The story
Early years
Transaero began as a charter airline with aircraft leased from Aeroflot. It was incorporated as a joint-stock company on 28 December 1990 and was the first private company approved for scheduled passenger services in the Soviet Union. Its first charter service was Moscow to Tel Aviv on 5 November 1991. In July 1992, Transaero received its own Ilyushin Il-86. It became the first privately owned airline to operate scheduled flights in Russia when it launched its Moscow–Alykel Airport, Norilsk flight in January 1993, followed by Kyiv, Sochi and Almaty later the same year. Its first international scheduled route outside the former Soviet Union was from Moscow to Tel Aviv in November 1993.
In April 1993, Transaero started operating Western-made aircraft when it received its first Boeing 737-200, followed by its first Boeing 757-200 in April 1994.
Transaero was also the first Russian airline with a frequent flyer program, which it established in 1995. It was also the first Russian airline with a Federal Aviation Administration aircraft maintenance certificate, which it obtained in 1997. In December 1998 a weekly service between Moscow and London Gatwick commenced. Transaero operated its first Boeing 737-700 in 1998, followed by Boeing 767-200 and Boeing 737-300 in 2002 and Boeing 767-300 and Boeing 737-400 in 2003. An agreement was signed to purchase 10 Tupolev Tu-214-300 aircraft in the same year. In 2005, Transaero became the first Russian passenger airline to operate the Boeing 747 when it started services on 11 July 2005 with a leased, ex-Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-200 on scheduled services from Moscow to Tel Aviv. The aircraft would also operate summer charter flights to holiday destinations.
In May 2005, Transaero added a flight between Moscow and Montreal, marking the first time the airline flew to Canada. On 21 June 2006, Transaero also began operating nonstop flights between Moscow and Toronto. The service to Toronto was temporarily suspended in September 2008, but was later restored, whereas the service to Montreal was cancelled in 2009.
It was reported in 2007 that Transaero negotiated a deal with Continental Airlines to purchase 10 of the Boeing 737-500 aircraft still in Continental's fleet. In November 2007, the airline announced a new scheduled bi-weekly service between Moscow and Sydney, Australia via Hong Kong, using Boeing 767-300 aircraft; commencing 24 December 2007, although the route was later terminated. Transaero also started to replace all of its Boeing 747-200s with used Boeing 747-400s at the end of 2007.
Late 2000s and early 2010s
Austrian Airlines and Transaero Airlines began code-sharing on Vienna-Moscow flights in October 2009.
In April 2010, Transaero arranged to lease 9 ex-Japan Airlines Boeing 747-400s which entered the fleet in 2010–2012. In December 2010, Transaero announced that they would increase their deal to 12 Boeing 747-400s. In October 2010, Transaero launched flights to Beijing, Miami and New York City. This marked the return of Transaero to the United States since cancelling service to Los Angeles. Beijing became the second Chinese destination after Sanya.
In 2011, Transaero received four Boeing 777-300 aircraft previously owned by Singapore Airlines. Also in 2011, Transaero agreed to buy four of Boeing's newest widebody, the Boeing 747-8, and put in a memorandum of understanding for 4 Airbus A380s. Transaero also ordered 4 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft on 26 December 2011, confirming this order on 8 April 2012.
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On 29 April 2012, Transaero resumed flights between Moscow and Los Angeles, utilizing a 777-200ER. In 2013, Transaero carried nearly 12.5 million people and operated 98 aircraft. In 2014, Transaero began direct flights from Moscow to Miami with Boeing 747-400s.
Transaero hosted a competition for a new logo and livery for rebranding in 2013–2014, but did not discuss the procedure's timetable. In April 2015, the airline decided to rebrand during 2015 and to introduce the new livery and logo with upcoming Airbus A380, Boeing 747-8, and Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft.
Final years and demise
By March 2015, Transaero had accumulated around 1.1 billion euros (approximately 77 billion rubles) of debt.
In May 2015, Transaero announced the expected receipt of its first two Airbus A380-800s and one Boeing 747-8 later in the year. The A380s were intended to operate from Moscow to New York and Vladivostok. However, this was quickly followed by a report that Transaero asked Airbus to reschedule the delivery of the first A380 beyond 2015 due to financial difficulties. At the IATA Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit in June 2015, the president of Airbus, Fabrice Brégier said "I’m sure we will meet the target to deliver the A380s to Transaero. The problem is that they are facing a difficult economic situation because of the rouble’s devaluation and a shrinking market for tourism from Russia."
Transaero announced the transfer of all operations at Moscow-Domodedovo to their other main hub at Moscow-Vnukovo to unify Moscow operations by 25 October 2015. This would not happen because of Transaero's closure.
In September 2015, Aeroflot agreed to acquire 75% of the highly indebted Transaero Airlines for the symbolic price of one rouble. However, by 2 October 2015, Aeroflot dropped the offer, stating that no agreement with Transaero and its shareholders had been reached by the deadline. The same day, with the debt having swollen to 3.9 billion euros (260 billion rubles) Transaero announced it intended to end all operations on 15 December 2015 as it faced imminent bankruptcy. Soon afterwards, Aeroflot announced the takeover of 34 of Transaero's leased aircraft, of which 20 are long-haul models. Subsequent to this announcement, Transaero ceased all ticket sales and refunded travel booked for after the shutdown date, and began to drastically reduce its schedule, cancelling or suspending flights on a daily basis and operating only a provisional schedule.
On 20 October 2015, competitor S7 Airlines announced an interest to buy a 50 percent stake in the bankrupt airline. After this sale fell through, on 24 October 2015, Russian authorities announced that Transaero's air operating certificate would be revoked within 48 hours (as the summer schedule concluded) and began to allocate Transaero's former traffic rights to other airlines, stating that Transaero's enormous debt meant that its continued operation would pose an imminent hazard to the flying public.
Prior to the shutdown, Transaero began to ferry its remaining fleet to Teruel in Spain. Among those are six of its nine long-range Boeing 747s and almost half its fleet of medium-range Boeing 737s. The final Transaero flight, Flight 160, flown by a Boeing 767-200ER, operated from Sokol Airport near Magadan in eastern Russia to Moscow-Vnukovo, landing on 25 October 2015 at 11:54 UTC.
In 2017 the United States Air Force entered into a contract with Boeing to purchase two undelivered Boeing 747-8s ordered by Transaero. The pair of planes have registration numbers N894BA and N895BA. The Air Force and Secret Service will retrofit these new aircraft with telecommunications and security equipment to bring them to the required security level of the presidential aircraft.
From Wikipedia’s article on Transaero, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4