MOSCOW, September 28 (Itar-Tass) — The Kavminvodyavia airline on Wednesday stops operation and its flights will be performed by a subsidiary of Aeroflot – the Donavia airline, the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.
“From September 28, the Air Operator Certificate of the federal state aviation enterprise Kavminvodyavia is annulled, and the air carrier terminate its operation,” the agency source said. According to him, the airline’s certificate was to expire at the end of August, but aviation authorities then gave it a one-month respite. However, the Kavminvodyavia airline has since failed to renew the license “because of not meeting the certification requirements, including due to the financial and economic condition.”
The flights of the airline that on Wednesday terminated operation will be performed by an Aeroflot subsidiary – the Donavia airline with which Kavminvodyavia will merge, explained the representative of the Federal Air Transport Agency.
Kavminvodyavia (KMV Avia) is based in Mineralnye Vody in the Caucasus, Russia. It operated scheduled services to over 20 destinations in the northern Caucasus region and abroad, as well as charter services. Its main base is Mineralnye Vody Airport, which is also operated by the company. The first airport operation dates from 1925, when the one aircraft was a French Dornue-Comet. The present three-story airport building opened in 1965. The airline was established in 1961 as the Mineralnye Vody Aviation Group. The first international city it operated services to was Berlin in 1980. The airport and its civil aviation service was reorganized into the Mineralnye Vody Civil Aviation Enterprise in 1988, under the direction of V.V. Babaskin. It was reorganized again in 1995 into the State United Venture Kavminvodyavia, more commonly known as KMV. The airline purchased several Tupolev Tu-204 aircraft in 1997. All its flights to the European Union were suspended since 19 June 2007 until company resolves issues with fleet.
The Federal Air Transport Agency is a federal body of executive authority responsible for rendering state services, managing state property and implementing legal regulation in the air transport sphere and the civilian sector of the Joint Air Traffic Control System, according to the RF government’s website.
The Federal Air Transport Agency has the following functions: to facilitate the implementation of federal target programmes and the federal selective investment programme; to render socially important state services to an unspecified number of individuals in line with federal legislation, including: facilitating the operation, development and modernisation of the civilian sector of the Joint Air Traffic Control System in line with the established procedure; implementing a range of measures to facilitate international and domestic flights; to issue individual legislative acts on the basis of and in execution of the Russian Federation's Constitution, federal constitutional laws, federal laws, decrees, and executive orders of the Russian Federation's President, Government, and Transport Ministry.