RUSSIAN flag carrier Aeroflot could be making its way back with direct flights between St Petersburg or Moscow and Kuala Lumpur – but this can only be possible once the on-going Russia-Ukraine conflict comes to a halt.
Yesterday (April 23), Malaysian ambassador to Russia Datuk Bala Chandran Tharman told Russian state-owned news agency Sputnik that he hopes Aeroflot will soon resume its direct flight to Malaysia soon.
“The issue of direct flights between our countries is being discussed in the joint Russian-Malaysian commission on economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation,” Bala Chandran said. “The issue of direct flights is on the agenda. As an ambassador, I really hope that Aeroflot will soon be able to open direct flights to Kuala Lumpur.”
At the moment, Aeroflot is reported to have suspended all its international flights beginning March 8 as Moscow faces down waves of western sanctions over its military incursion in Ukraine.
The airline has been banned from the airspace of the entire European Union, the UK and Canada, forcing it to suspend flights to these destinations. In retaliation, Russia has banned airlines from those same countries from flying over its territory.
An Aeroflot statement on the “temporary suspension of all international flights from March 8”, cited new “circumstances that impede the operation of flights”, noting that all domestic routes would continue unchanged as well as flights to neighbouring Belarus.
Recall that Aeroflot discontinued its twice-weekly services to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at end-March 2001 as it suspended its twice weekly Kuala Lumpur-Singapore-Moscow flights and the Karachi-Colombo-Moscow flight. It also stopped flying to Africa and South America (back in 2001).
Reasons cited for the suspensions were losses due to poor passenger loads and redeployment of the aircraft to more viable routes.
Prior to this, Aeroflot was reportedly flying from Moscow to Kuala Lumpur via Singapore using Ilyushin IL-96 aircraft with passenger capacity of just over 200 and cargo space of about eight tonnes.
According to a report by Russia’s largest state-owned news agency, Tass, Aeroflot opened a new weekly air service to Malaysia in April 1970 with an IL‐62 flight from Moscow via Teheran, Karachi and Colombo to Kuala Lumpur.
Founded on 17th March 1923, Aeroflot is among the world’s oldest airlines and one of Russia’s most recognised brands.
The first Russian airline company to join the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in 1989, Aeroflot has since turnaround a bad service and safety concern reputation by becoming an award-winning airline with operational reliability and a reputation for industry-leading customer service as certified by Skytrax’s Four Star Airline status. – April 24, 2022
