EU Sanctions Ground Russia's Drobolet

The Russian low cost carrier Dobrolet has seized all flight operations by Monday. As media reported the Aeroflot subsidiary airline could not continue operations due to sanctions imposed by the European Union (EU) on Russia in cause of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.

 All Boeing 737 planes flown by the recently founded company were a wet lease from a western European contractor and maintenance was carried out by Lufthansa Technik, a subsidiary of the German flag carrier Lufthansa. These and a contract for flight information services from another company were reported to have been terminated after the sanctions went into power this weekend.

Dobrolet, which means ‘Good Flight’ in Russian was a 20-million-Euro attempt to bring the model of a no frill carrier into the Russian skies, where the highly regulated transport sector relies mostly on classical business model. Most commentators found it an affront that the first destination served by the carrier was Simferopol (SIF) on Crimea, just days after the peninsula in the Black Sea was incorporated into the Russian Federation despite international protest. The airline planned to expand its network rapidly later this year and transport more than one million passengers.

At the same time the Russian Air Force (VVS) commenced its biggest exercise in in post-Cold-War-history. More than 100 fast jets and ground units including missile launchers were reported to have been deployed in western Russia on the border to Ukraine. 

AU/pvk