Air Samara (Samara Kurumoch) has been denied its Air Operators Certificate by the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) on the grounds that its air crew and technical facilities do not comply with regulatory requirements.
The Samara Today newspaper claims Rosaviatsia said in its assessment that the airline did not have an adequate number of pilots for its fleet of three Beech (twin turboprop) King Air 350i turboprops nor did have a suitable line maintenance facility for the type at its Samara Kurumoch home base.
According to its plans to merge with Air Samara, MetroJet (Russian Federation) (Moscow Domodedovo) parent Kolavia (Kogalym) will relocate some of its Moscow Domodedovo operations to Samara Kurumoch where it will base an undisclosed number of its A320s and A321s. It also intends to add a further ten aircraft over the next three years.
