Kyzyl-Krasnoyarsk flights now run daily and are more comfortable

Starting today, Krasnoyarsk and Kyzyl are now connected by daily flights, except on Sundays. Today,  Premier of Tuva, Sholban Kara-ool, returning from a business trip to Moscow, together with the general director of the transport company, Yevgenii Andrachnikov, were among the first passengers of the new Krasnoyarsk-Kyzyl flight route, performed by the company “Dexter” with an 8-passenger Swiss PilatusPC-12.  Along with them, five more residents of Kyzyl used the new services. They were completely satisfied with the price of  5750 rubles (in comparison, “NovosibirskAvia” charges 6500 rubles for the same route), and with the comfortable conditions of the flight.

The round trip Kyzyl-Krasnoyarsk-Kyzyl flight at the altitude of 6900 meters at the speed of 500 km/hr was very smooth, and took only 1 hr and 20 minutes. There is another advantage to the PilatusPC-12 airplane – there is very low noise level, which allows easy conversations with other passengers.

“I felt like an oligarch. So comfortable. So fast”, as Otkan-ool Mongush, one of the passengers, expressed it.

There are two pilots from today on, the Kyzyl-krasnoyarsk-Kyzyl flights will run on a daily basis, with the exception of Sundays.  At 8:35 local time, the fligfht from Kyzyl to Krasnoyarsk takes off, leaving Krasnoyarsk at 10:45 for the return trip. Once the Krasnoyarsk flights are fully established, flights to Novosibirsk will be initiated.

The ministry of culture and tourism believes that the new flights will allow the organization of short tourist day-trips to Tuva for Siberian businessmen. “Because of their work load, they cannot easily take 3 days off, much less an entire week from their schedule, for a trip to Tuva, - Viktoria Saryglar, deputy of the minister, explained. – And there is a lot to see. We have the unique collection of jewellery and artifacts of the Scythian period  at the National Museum. There is “Ustuu-Khuree” temple, “Por-Bazhyn” fortress. There are many attractions. We will recommend to the tourist companies to work in this direction.”

At a meeting with journalists at the Kyzyl airport, Premier Sholban Kara-ool announced that the co-operation with the “Dexter” company has a decisive significance for securing transportation access to the republic and mobility for the people under the circumstances of “NovosibirskAvia” bankruptcy.

“We need to involve Pilatus in internal flights as well, - as the Premier emphasized. – We are planning to re-establish and renovate airport runways in the districts where they were available before the “perestroika”. That means Mongun-Taiga, Barun-Khemchik, Tere-Khol, and  Todzha.”

The republic will obtain two of the “Pilatus” airplanes in lease for three years. During this period, the company takes on the obligation to perform daily flights to Krasnoyarsk, and to Novosibirsk a little bit later. “Dexter” takes upon itself the commercial risks of utilization of the flights. “I can see that the leadership of the republic is interested in the development of regional aviation.  The Premier of Tuva has a contemporary approach to the solution of this matter, - Yevgenii Andrachnikov notes. – Our joint project, based on a partnership between a government and a private enterprise is, so far, the first one in Russia. It is calculated for future possibilities. Pilatus is very comfortable and convenient for passenger transport to main road connections. Given the convenient geographic location of border-zone Tuva, even international flights, for example to Ulan-Bator can be considered. It is only a possibility, but we have to start working on it now.

The company “Dexter” performs express flights all over Russia with Swiss airplanes Pilatus PC-12.  It is a single-engine turbo-prop airplane, with a capacity of 8 passengers at 500km/hr to distances up to 2000 km. The cabin of plane is furnished with folding tables, rosettes for “notebooks”, personal DVD players and a rest-room. The comfort of this plane exceeds many times the flight conditions in  AN-24, which is currently used for passenger flights in the republic.