Azur Air

The airline started operations in 1995 and operates regional flights out of Krasnoyarsk Cheremshanka Airport and Krasnoyarsk-Yemelyanovo Airport.[2][3] The airline also operates charter services to Siberia and Yakutia. It carried around 122,000 passengers in 2009,[4] and in 2010 started to acquire larger aircraft, mainly the Tupolev Tu-134. As of 3 April 2014, it had three Tupolev Tu-134s.[3]

In April 2014 the airline commenced scheduled flights between larger Krasnoyarsk-Yemelyanovo Airport and further cities in Siberia: Surgut and Tomsk. The airline received international media and social media attention in 2014, when a video emerged of passengers on a scheduled flight from Igarka to Krasnoyarsk disembarking pre-departure to push their plane in temperatures of minus 52 degrees Celsius after its chassis froze.[5]

In 2015, Katekavia handed over its fleet to Turukhan Airlines. Katekavia was rebranded as a leisure carrier and renamed Azur Air.[6][7] In December 2015, it has been confirmed that former owner UTair Aviation sold Azur Air to Turkish tourism company Anex Tourism Group[8] which also bought Azur Air Ukraine, the former UTair-Ukraine, a few weeks earlier.[8]

In February 2018, the Russian aviation authority RosAviatsiya announced that Azur Air faces a suspension of its operational licence by 20 March 2018 if the carrier does not resolve alleged safety violations by then. As this would lead to the shut down of all flight operations, Russian tourism agency RosTourism advised tour operators to not sell tickets on Azur Air for the time being.[9] All restrictions by RosAviatsiya and RosTourism were lifted on 20 March 2018 as a result of controls on technical and documental details.