Belavia

Belavia Belarusian Airlines, legally Joint Stock Company "Belavia Belarusian Airlines" (Belarusian: ААТ «Авіякампанія «Белавія»; Russian: ОАО «Авиакомпания «Белавиа»), is the flag carrier and national airline of Belarus, headquartered in Minsk.[1] The state-owned company had, as of 2007, 1,017 employees.[2] Belavia serves a network of routes between European cities and the Commonwealth of Independent States, as well as some Middle East destinations from its base at Minsk National Airport.[2]

Belavia
IATA ICAO Callsign
B2 BRU BELARUS AVIA
Founded5 March 1996
HubsMinsk National Airport
Frequent-flyer programBelavia Leader
Fleet size32
Destinations59
Parent companyGovernment of Belarus
HeadquartersMinsk, Belarus
Key peopleA. N. Gusarov, Director-general
Websitebelavia.by

History

Early years
Belavia's previous logo (used until 2016)
Belavia's head office in Minsk.

On 7 November 1933, the first Belarusian air terminal opened in Minsk. In the next spring, 3 Po-2 aircraft landed in Minsk. They became the first aircraft of the Belarusian air fleet. In 1936 the first regular air route between Minsk and Moscow was established. In the summer of 1940, the Belarusian civil aviation group was officially founded.

In 1964, the Tupolev Tu-124 aircraft received Belarusian registration. In 1973, the then-new Tupolev Tu-134A began operating in Belarus. In 1983 Belarusian aviation started flying the new Tupolev Tu-154 planes.

The airline was officially founded on 5 March 1996 following a resolution of the Belarusian Government "On the restructuring of air transport of the Republic, Belarus", when the local Aeroflot division was nationalized and renamed. Between then and 1998 Belavia opened regular routes to Beijing, Istanbul, Larnaca, London, Prague, and Rome. In 1998, Belavia merged with MinskAvia, acquiring several Antonov An-24, Antonov An-26 and Yakovlev Yak-40 aircraft in addition to existing fleet of Tupolev Tu-134 and Tupolev Tu-154 airplanes.

Development since the 2000s

On 18 May 2001, Belavia commenced a Minsk-Paris scheduled service with Tu-134s and Tu-154s.

In 2003 Belavia started publishing an in-flight magazine Horizons in English, Russian and Belarusian. On 16 October 2003, Belavia signed a leasing agreement for its first Boeing 737-500 aircraft. In 2004, Belavia further extended operations and acquired one more Boeing 737. On 26 June 2004 Belavia opened a new route to Hanover, Germany. 2011 saw the introduction of a new route between Minsk and Helsinki, Finland.

Between 2003 and 2009, the airline has seen its passenger numbers double and in 2009 handled just under 700,000 customers.[3]

Three leased Bombardier CRJ 100 aircraft were introduced on regional services from Minsk. The first one was delivered in February 2007, with the other two later in 2007. They directly replaced the aging Antonov An-24 and Tupolev Tu-134 aircraft.[4] It was looking to lease two Bombardier CRJ-700s in 2010.[5] Belavia had also planned to retire its remaining Tupolev Tu-154Ms by 2011 following the retirement of its last Tupolev Tu-134 in summer 2009 which was replaced by an ex-FlyLAL Boeing 737-500. On 27 June 2014, an order was announced for three Boeing 737-800 aircraft to be acquired directly by Belavia. The first of these was delivered in August 2016.[6]

Belavia is considering adding long-haul aircraft to its fleet to introduce new routes to China and North America. The government is reportedly also considering merging regional carrier Gomelavia and cargo operator TransAVIAexport Airlines into Belavia.

In August 2016, Belavia received their first aircraft with their new livery. This is the first re-branding since the company's founding in 1996 on its 20 years anniversary. The new livery was applied a brand new Boeing 737-800. The much newer 737s replaced the aging Tupolev Tu-154s. On 1 October 2016, Belavia retired their two remaining Tupolev Tu-154s from scheduled services as one of the last airlines worldwide to do so.[7]

Destinations
Main article: List of Belavia destinations

Belavia flies to Asia, Europe, and Africa from its base at Minsk National Airport. In addition to scheduled destinations listed here, Belavia operates charter flights to leisure destinations and VIP charters.

Codeshare agreements

Belavia has codeshare agreements with the following 11 airlines since January 2020:[8]

Fleet

Current fleet
A Belavia Boeing 737-300
A Belavia Boeing 737-800

As of February 2020, the Belavia fleet consists of the following aircraft:[10]

Belavia fleet
Aircraft In service Orders Passengers Notes
B E Total
Boeing 737-300 4 — — 148 148 To be phased out.[11]
Boeing 737-500 6 — 8 96 104
— 120 120
Boeing 737-800 9 — — 189 189
Boeing 737 MAX 8 — 4[12] TBA
Bombardier CRJ-200ER 2 — — 50 50
Embraer 175LR 4 — 12 64 76
Embraer 195LR 7 — 11 96 107[13]
Embraer 195-E2 — 3 9 116 125 Delivery starts from 2020 until 2021[14]
Total 32 7

Historic fleet
A now-retired Belavia Tupolev Tu-134 in 2008.
Belavia Retired Fleet[15]
Aircraft Notes
Antonov An-10
Antonov An-24 Acquired in 1998 from MinskAvia
Antonov An-26 Acquired in 1998 from MinskAvia
Ilyushin Il-86 EW-86062,[16] ex СССР-86062, then RA-86062 to Atlant-Soyuz Airlines;[17]
Was used in 1994 to 1996 on charter routes to China and United States.[18]
Tupolev Tu-124
Tupolev Tu-134A
Tupolev Tu-154B One used as training mock-up
Tupolev Tu-154-B1 Scrapped
Tupolev Tu-154-B2 6 scrapped, 9 stored at MSQ; One used as training mock-up[19]
Yakovlev Yak-40 Acquired in 1998 from MinskAvia

Incidents and accidents
  • On 6 January 2003, a Yakovlev Yak-40 suffered a shattered windshield during flight, en route to Prague. Two Czech Air Force fighters accompanied the plane to a safe landing in Ruzyně International Airport.[20]
  • On 14 February 2008, Belavia Flight 1834, a Bombardier CRJ100ER en route from Yerevan, Armenia, to Minsk, hit its left wing on the runway during takeoff from Zvartnots International Airport, subsequently crashing on the ground, flipping over and coming to a stop inverted near the runway. All 18 passengers and 3 crew members managed to escape the aircraft before it erupted into flames, partly due to the timely response of the fire and rescue crew at the airport. The main cause of the crash was icing contamination leading to a stall of the left wing.[21]
gollark: I'm pretty sure I've seen diagrams of pronounceable things of some kind, but they're more complex than just permutations of "high tone, low tone" and do not conveniently map to concepts.
gollark: What do you mean "all of the possible forms of a square diagram with two or more sides"? There are infinitely many of those. And how do I just pronounce a diagram without a predetermined mapping?
gollark: Also, I have no idea what an "objective → semantic buffer" is and I think you're underestimating the difficulty of implementing whatever it is.
gollark: I can't actually source this, having checked *at least* two internet things.
gollark: In any case, I am not a linguist, but I think it's technically possible to produce an AST from English, or something like that, but really impractical. There is no regular grammar, words can't be cleanly mapped to concepts because they carry connotations pulled in from common discourse and the context surrounding them, many of them mean multiple things, you have to be able to resolve pronouns and references to past text, etc.

References
  1. "Belavia website: Contacts". En.belavia.by. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  2. "Directory: World Airlines". Flight International. 27 March 2007. pp. 84–85.
  3. "Belavia now serving 32 destinations from Minsk; Stockholm and Tehran latest additions to growing network". anna.aero Airline Route News & Analysis.
  4. Airliner World, February 2007
  5. http://www.belta.by/en/news/econom?id=474506%5B%5D
  6. "Another NG for Belavia". Airliner World (October 2016): 8.
  7. "Belarus's Belavia ends scheduled Tu-154M operations".
  8. "Belavia Partners". Belavia. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
  9. "AZAL and Belavia signed a codeshare agreement on Baku-Minsk route". Azerbaijan Airlines (in French). Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  10. en.belavia.by - Aircraft Fleet retrieved 12 October 2019
  11. "Belarus's Belavia to renew fleet with EJet-E2s, B737 MAX".
  12. "Belavia to lease four B737 MAX 8s from ALC". ch-aviation.com. 17 July 2018.
  13. "Aircraft Fleet - BELAVIA - Belarusian Airlines". en.belavia.by.
  14. "Belarus's Belavia secures three E195-E2s from AerCap". Ch-Aviation. 21 February 2020.
  15. "БЕЛАВИА - Национальная авиакомпания Республики Беларусь - История компании". Belavia.by. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  16. Gerard Helmer (9 September 1994). "Photos: Ilyushin Il-86 Aircraft Pictures". Airliners.net.
  17. "ММЗ им. С. В. Ильюшина Ил-86". Abaza.ilisso.ru. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  18. "Forumavia.ru - Ил-86 EW-86062 Belavia". www.forumavia.ru.
  19. "Штурм самолета, нейтрализация "террористов" и освобождение "заложников" | Фоторепортаж | Новости Беларуси | Последние новости | Онлайн новости | Мировые новости | БелТА". Belta.by. Archived from the original on 4 March 2012. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  20. Pravda Canopy of Belarusian Yak-40 burst in air Archived 29 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine. Published 6 January 2003.
  21. Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) (4 June 2009). "Final Report of Belavia Flight 1834" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 September 2011.

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