Following the latest crash with Russia’s old workhorse of an aircraft, the An-24, in Siberia earlier in August, President Dmitri Medvedev promises the withdrawal of all aircrafts of the model. If no replacement is found, it means the end to the only existing east-west flight within the Barents Region.
The aircraft operates the cross-border route between the two largest cities in Barents Russia, Arkhangelsk and Murmansk to Tromsø in northern Norway.
It is the airliner Nordavia that operates has flight two times a week. The same airliner also operates the route Murmansk to Helsinki in Finland with An-24.
An-24 is Russia’s most widespread propeller and operates at many of the remote smaller regional airfields throughout the country.
An-24 has been flying the route Arkhangelsk-Murmansk-Tromsø since the early 90ties and is considered to be the main bridge-builder transport means in the Norwegian-Russian cooperation in the north. Until some few years ago, the aircraft was also flying from Murmansk to Rovaniemi and Luleå.
Over the first years, the An-24 planes on the routes were operated by Aeroflot, and then under the company name Arkhangelsk Airlines, then re-named Aeroflot Nord before it in 2009 was named Nordavia. Altrough the company has changed its names and ownership many times, it has always been the same aircrafts. They are just re-painted with new logos and colors now and then.
Earlier this year, Nordavia was bought by Norilsk-Nickel and it will likely be merged with existing Taimyr airlines, also known as Nordstar Airlines.
Read also: Nordavia sold for just $ 5 million
An-24 was first time flying in 1959 and over 1,000 were built until 1978. More than 100 of the An-24 have crashed, according to Wikipedia.
The An-24 is still on Nordavia’s schedule for the Tromsø-Murmansk-Arkhangelsk flights, but according to the portal of the Russian president, all such aircrafts will have to be grounded by the end of this year.
Nordavia has many times stated that they are planning to replace their An-24 with more modern aircrafts, like the Boeing-737, Embraer-145 or the ATR-42, but so far the plans have only been empty words.
