Red Wings Airlines Explained

Airline:	Red Wings Airlines
Fleet Size:	27
Destinations:	28
Iata:	WZ
Icao:	RWZ
Callsign:	RED WINGS^[1]
Headquarters:	Moscow, Russia
Key People:	Yevgeny Solodilin (CEO)^[2]
Hubs:	Chelyabinsk Moscow-Domodedovo Moscow-Zhukovsky Omsk St Petersburg Yekaterinburg
Subsidiaries:	Sky Gates Airlines^[3]

Red Wings Airlines is a Russian regional leisure airline based in Moscow Domodedovo Airport. The airline provides both scheduled passenger and cargo services.

History

Red Wings was founded in 1999 under the name VARZ-400, after the Russian acronym of the Vnukovo Avia Repair Factory. It was renamed Airlines 400 in 2001, before adopting its current name in 2007.

The airline was owned by Russian tycoon Alexander Lebedev, who wanted to create a discount airline using modern Russian Tupolev Tu-204-100B 210-passenger twin-jet airliners, both newly built and used. The company had a fleet of ten Tu-204-100Bs (an eleventh Tu-204 was written off after crashing at Vnukovo International Airport on 29 December 2012), and had also sought to acquire Airbus A320s and possibly Airbus A321s to complement its Tu-204 fleet.^[4]

Lebedev also owned 49% of German charter airline Blue Wings, which was to become Red Wings's sister company. However, on 13 January 2010, Blue Wings ceased all operations and filed for bankruptcy, citing the global financial crisis for a pull-out of investors.^[5]

After the crash of Flight 9268 in Vnukovo, Russian aviation authorities initiated an emergency check of airline operational activities and fleet maintenance, resulting in the revocation of the carrier's AOC, effective on 4 February 2013. The airline had ceased all operations the day before and owner Alexander Lebedev announced that no return to operation was planned.^{[6] [7]}

On 4 April 2013, NRC sold Red Wings Airlines Group "Guta" for one symbolic ruble (in this case, leased aircraft remained with the lessor NRC-owned company "Ilyushin Finance"). The new owners of Red Wings planned to increase the fleet to 10–15 aircraft; the airline was only going to buy Russian aircraft. On 25 April 2013, Red Wings announced it would be headed by Sergey Belov—the previous CEO of the airline "Russia". On 18 June 2013, the Federal Air Transport Agency renewed Red Wings' commercial passenger and cargo transportation certificate. On 22 June, the airline resumed charter flights, and on 12 July, scheduled flights from Moscow.

To increase their business power, Red Wings and Nordavia decided to merge. But while the process was initiated, a date for finalization of the merger or clarification of the two airlines' future business relationship and branding identities was never announced. The plan called for Airbus A320 aircraft initially ordered by Nordavia to be delivered to Red Wings. The new brand name was to be announced after the completion of the merger.^[8]

On 20 September 2018, Red Wings announced its re-branding; the first aircraft to arrive with the updated livery was to be the Airbus A321, set to arrive by the end of 2018.^[9]

In August 2021 Red Wings signed their first personal services 20-year contract to the value of 500 million dollars with United Aircraft Corporation in order to technical support of SSJ100 engines. Before, only the engine's manufacturer, PowerJet company, could carry the right to sign any technical support contracts with air companies directly.^[10]

Destinations

Codeshare agreements

Currently, Red Wings Airlines has codeshare agreement with following airlines:

• Smartavia^[11]
• Ural Airlines^[12]

Fleet

Current fleet

The Red Wings fleet consists of the following aircraft as of January 2024:^{[13] [14] [15] [16]}

Red Wings Airlines fleet

Aircraft	In service	Orders	Passengers			Notes
			C	Y	Total
	3	-	-	412	412
Sukhoi Superjet 100-95	20	40	-	100	100	Order of overall 60 aircraft.^[17]
Tupolev Tu-204-100	1	-	25	-	25	Leased from Aviastar-TU.
Tupolev Tu 204-100B	1	-	-	210	210
Tupolev Tu-204-300	1	-	18	134	152
Tupolev Tu-214^[18]	1	-	-	194	194	Used for international flights. Will eventually replace the A320 and A321s.
Yakovlev MC-21-300	-	16^[19] ^[20]	TBA
Total	27	56

Retired fleet

Red Wings Airlines previously also operated the following types of aircraft:

• Airbus A320-200^[21]
• Airbus A321-200^[21]
  • Ilyushin Il-76 Tupolev Tu-154

Accidents and incidents

• On 29 December 2012, at 16:35 local time (12:35 GMT), Red Wings Airlines Flight 9268, a Tupolev TU-204-100В (Registration: RA-64047, c/n: 1450743164047, s/n: 047, built: 2008) crashed on landing after overrunning runway 19 at Vnukovo International Airport (VKO) following a non-revenue repositioning flight originating from Pardubice Airport, Czech Republic. The aircraft broke up and came to a stop on elevated highway M3 about 400abbr=outNaNabbr=out past the runway's end. There were eight crew members on board of whom five were killed and the other three seriously injured.^{[22] [23]} The fatal Vnukovo accident was the second runway overrun incident involving a Red Wings operated TU-204-100B in nine days following a Moscow Vnukovo to Novosibirsk flight on 20 December 2012 that overran runway 25 at Tolmachevo Airport by 1150feet into an open field.^[24] Initial flight data recorder readouts indicate that brake failure, as well as engine thrust reverser issues, were major contributing causes in both overruns resulting in the issuance of additional airworthiness directives.^{[25] [26] [27] [28]} Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) later determined that, as in the precursor non-fatal overrun incident in Novosibirsk, the fatal Moscow accident was caused by a failure of the compression switches in two of the three landing gear assemblies to close on touchdown thus causing the engine thrust reverser shells to fail to deploy.^[29]
• On 22 August 2018, one of the Aviadvigatel PS-90 engines of a Red Wings Tu-204 operating flight WZ808 from Ufa to Sochi experienced an engine surge during takeoff from Ufa International Airport and subsequently caught fire. The crew did not receive any fire indications, the automatic fire suppression system did not work, and the manual fire suppression failed to fully extinguish the flames. Emergency services put out the fire after landing while the passengers were evacuated through the right-hand emergency doors via slides. There were no injuries. A Rosaviatsia (Russia's Civil Aviation Authority) commission has been set up to investigate the occurrence.^[30]

See also

• List of airlines of Russia

External links

• Red Wings Official website
• Official website of Air 400 (Archive)

Notes and References

1. Web site: Marie-Pierre Balcaen, EUROCONTROL DAP/DIA. Eurocontrol, Designators for Aircraft Operating Agencies, Aeronautical Authorities and Services . Extranet.eurocontrol.int. 30 December 2012.
2. Web site: Former Zhukovsky Airport head Solodilin replaces Klyucharev as CEO of Red Wings. interfax.com. 2022-07-13.
3. Web site: Russia's Red Wings completes Sky Gates acquisition. Ch-aviation.com. August 30, 2023.
4. "Red Wings considers A321s as suitable A320s prove elusive", Flight International, Retrieved 24 August 2008
5. Web site: Blue Wings stellt Flugbetrieb ein. Flugrevue. de. 13 January 2010.
6. Web site: ВЕДОМОСТИ – Росавиация приостановила действие сертификата эксплуатанта Red Wings. Vedomosti.ru. 19 August 2014.
7. "http://www.favt.ru/favt_new/?q=novosti/novosti/novost/3031 "
8. Web site: Авиакомпании Red Wings и "Нордавиа" объединятся. ato.ru. 16 October 2017.
9. Web site: ФОТО: Red Wings представила два варианта обновленной ливреи. ato.ru. 20 September 2018.
10. Web site: Red Wings заплатит $500 млн за обслуживание двигателей SSJ100 по контракту на 20 лет. ru. 2021-08-16. Forbes (Россия).
11. News: Liu. Jim. Red Wings expands Nordavia codeshares in S19. 10 May 2019. Routesonline. 10 May 2019.
12. Web site: Авиакомпании Red Wings и "Уральские авиалинии" договорились о совместных перевозках. PravdaUrfo. 7 October 2021.
13. Global Airline Guide 2017 (Part Two). Airliner World. November 2017. 30.
14. Web site: Red Wings Fleet Details and History. Planespotters.net. 3 October 2022.
15. Web site: Новости Aviation EXplorer: ГТЛК передала в лизинг авиакомпании Red Wings 2 самолета SSJ 100.
16. Web site: Red Wings (WZ/RWZ) Fleet, Routes, & Reviews . Flightradar24 . 29 May 2023.
17. Web site: Start in neue Ära: Red Wings übernimmt den ersten von 60 Superjets. 14 September 2020.
18. https://x.com/La_souris_DA/status/1740410231895490597?s=20
19. Web site: MAKS: Red Wings signs for Russian jets and Q400s. Flightglobal.com. 30 August 2013. 2 September 2013.
20. Web site: Irkut MC-21 gets new orders at MAKS Air Show. 18 July 2017. atwonline.com. en-GB. 19 July 2017.
21. News: Red Wings в 2024г планирует получить второй грузовой Ил-96 и вернуть в строй часть A320 . 13 December 2023 . Interfax-Tourism . 12 December 2023 . ru.
22. Web site: ASN Aircraft accident Tupolev 204-100V RA-64047 Moskva-Vnukovo Airport (VKO). Aviation-safety.net. 29 December 2012.
23. Web site: Agencies. Russian passenger jet crashes at Moscow's Vnukovo airport. Guardian. 29 December 2012. 29 December 2012.
24. Web site: ASN Aircraft accident 20-DEC-2012 Tupolev Tu-204-100V RA-64049. Aviation-safety.net. 20 December 2012. 29 December 2012.
25. Hradecky, Simon "Accident: Red Wings T204 at Moscow on Dec 29th 2012, overran runway on landing" The Aviation Herald, 29 December 2012. (updated 31 December 2012).
26. Hradecky, Simon "Incident: Red Wings T204 at Novosibirsk on Dec 20th 2012, runway excursion on landing" The Aviation Herald 20 December 2012 (updated 30 December 2012)
27. http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/bad-brakes-cited-in-moscow-crash-landing-311397 Bad brakes cited in Moscow crash landing
28. Kaminski-Morrow, David "Tu-204 directive warns pilots to check thrust-reverse status" Flightglobal.com, 2 January 2013
29. http://rbth.ru/news/2013/01/24/tu-204_red_wings_crash_in_vnukovo_was_caused_by_reverse_failure_-_inters_22178.html "Tu-204 Red Wings crash in Vnukovo was caused by reverse failure – Interstate Aviation Committee"
30. Web site: Incident: Red Wings T204 at Ufa on Aug 22nd 2018, engine fire. avherald.com. 27 March 2019.