On Wednesday, May 21, 2003, at 23:44 America/Anchorage, Alireza Alivandivafa wrote: > Whatever happened to Alaska Airline's service to the Russian Far East. > They > used to run a milk run of sorts, > SEA-ANC-Magadan-Yuzhno-Kamchakta-Vladivastok. > Whatever happened to that service, and did SU pick it up? > I worked for both AS and SU during times they each flew it. Neither do now. AS did Khabarovsk-Magadan-ANC-SEA, but getting rid of the 727-200s with extended range tanks left just the MD-83, not a great plane for that route length, operating environment, etc. But the real blow was the loss of passengers. The adventure travel market of people seeking newly opened places dried up pretty quickly. The oil business never took off. The Russian economy all but collapsed and the tourism infrastructure never developed. I think they did add Vladivostok after the USA opened a consulate there, but that service didn't last too long, if I remember right. Now AS has long-range 737-700s and 900s, but I think that's the only thing to improve, the traffic isn't there and not likely to be sufficient for some time. Aeroflot and some Russian Far East subsidiaries/spin-off companies, tried IL62s from Vladivostok, Khabarosk and Tu154s from Magadan and Petropovlosk. Maybe UUS, but I don't think that lasted long. Some Il-62s went beyond ANC to LAX, SFO or SEA, the Tu154 went beyond to SEA. Aeroflot dropped the Moscow-ANC nonstop service when they got long-range aircraft (Russian Il-96s -later replaced by Boeing 777) and could serve SEA, SFO and LAX nonstop. The only Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk service I remember on a long-lasting basis was Reeve Aleutian. They did very well with their combi 727s, but they shut their doors a couple years ago due to the overall airline economic situation. Mavial, or Magadan Airlines, has stopped the SEA scheduled stops, but still flies to ANC weekly or bi-weekly (or tri- :-), depending on the season. I think their aircraft also go via Petro, but I don't think Yuzhno. That's the "off-the-top-of-my-head" recollection. If you need better details, I can dig up some. Mike