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RF air transport authority suspends flights of Red Wings Airlines

Last year Rosaviatsia made two planned inspection checks, finding shortcomings in providing aviation operations

MOSCOW, February 4 (Itar-Tass) – Russia’s Rosaviatsia Federal Air Transport Agency suspends starting from Monday flights of Red Wings Airlines.

This decision “is not connected with the crash landing of a Tu-204 airliner at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on December 29,” the agency said. However, in line with the law after the accident Rosaviatsia checked the activity of the carrier. As a result, “numerous major violations in flight management, maintenance of aircraft, training of pilots were stated, as well as other systematic drawbacks in the activity of the company,” a source from the agency stressed.

He said that last year Rosaviatsia made two planned inspection checks, finding shortcomings in providing aviation operations. Meanwhile, the leadership of Red Wings “was not taking necessary measures to remove them, which negatively influenced the safety of its flights and poses a direct threat to the life and health of passengers,” he said.

The agency also stressed that the carrier presently feels a deficit of financial resources to ensure its current activity and is at risk as to its financial-economic condition, which makes it impossible to duly ensure a high level of flight safety. As for the passengers, Rosaviatsia recommends them to return earlier bought tickets for Red Wings flights. According to the Transport Clearing House and Red Wings, as of October 2012, the carrier had sold over 15,000 tickets for regular flights.

Rosaviatsia stressed that “passengers of the airlines will get a possibility to use the services of other Russian carriers to fly from the point of arrival to the initial departure place with Red Wings tickets through March 20, 2013”.

The company itself reports on its official website that all passengers having tickets for flights from 21:00 Moscow time on February 3 through March 20, 2013 will be carried on planes of Aeroflot and WIM Avia.

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