Russia's Ministry of Transport, through the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia), has rejected applications by Pegas Fly (Orenburg) and Nordwind Airlines (N4, Moscow Sheremetyevo) to resume regular flights to Turkey suspended following the downing of a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 by the Turkish Air Force in November last year.
Rosaviatsia's director general, Alexander Neradko, told the Interfax news agency in an interview that given the recent terrorist bombings and attacks in Istanbul and Ankara, Russia did not consider Turkey to be a sufficiently safe place for travel.
"We have seen terrorist acts going on in Turkey; explosions and bomb attacks," he said. "Therefore, at the present time we are against the development of regular air traffic [to Turkey] for as long as the situation there cannot be considered safe for our citizens."
Nordwind Airlines reportedly applied to operate seven regular weekly flights to each of Istanbul and Antalya from Omsk, Chelyabinsk Balandino, Perm Bolshoye Savino, Samara Kurumoch, Ufa , Kazan International, Nizhny Novgorod Strigino, Voronezh Chertovitskoye and Volgograd while Pegas Fly had sought permission to fly twice a week to Antalya from each of Krasnoyarsk Yemelyanovo, Irkutsk International, Khabarovsk Novy, Samara, Perm Bolshoye Savino and Ufa.
Until last year's incident, Turkey was a favoured destination for Russian holiday-makers. However, following the November incident, Moscow banned all local carriers from operating flights to Turkey. Ural Airlines (U6, Ekaterinburg) was, however, given permission to restart charter flights to Antalya in March.
