S7 plans renewed fleet and a 'sensational' offer for Austrian stake
10 Sep 2008
Moscow headquartered S7 Airlines has said it would strip its fleet of all Soviet-made aircraft by the start of November. The airline, Russia's No. 2 and formerly called Sibir, has also announced plans to come up with what it termed as a "sensational offer" for a stake in Austrian Airlines Group.
Addressing a news conference at Vienna, S7's CEO Vladislav Filev said the airline's offer would secure jobs both at Austrian and at Vienna International. He said that by 2012, three million more passengers from Russia could be flying via a strategic hub in Vienna, and that would be a win-win situation for both the carrier as well as the airport.
S7 ferried 5.7 million passengers last year. Though rival Russian airline Aeroflot's international network is much larger, Filev said Aeroflot transported 9.5 million passengers leveraging a workforce of 15,000. By comparison, he said that S7 would fly around seven million passengers annually, with only 2,500 employees.
Those efficiency quotients would go up once S7 renews its fleet with western aircraft, which it promised to do in a statement released a couple of days ago. S7 will now withdraw its Tu-154s and Il-86s by the end of October, replacing ''these technologically obsolete planes'' on account of ''poor operational and environmental performance".
S7 plans to add to its fleet five 737-800s, two 737-400s, five 767-300ERs and two A320s this year. This is part of a larger fleet expansion plan that will see the airline add a total of 70 new aircraft by 2014.
In 2009, S7 will add two 737-800s, two 767-300ERs and the first four aircraft from its 2007 Paris Air Show order for 25 A320s to its fleet. Come 2010, and the airline will commence accepting delivery of an order for 10 more 737-800s, and plans to start flying the first of its 15 787 Dreamliners in 2014.
S7 still needs a foothold outside of Russia to improve its competitiveness in a market where Russians are increasingly traveling overseas. That is where its plans for a ''sensational offer'' of a stake in Austrian would come in, as S7 says it fits ''to our size and network".
