OREANDA-NEWS. December 12, 2007. UTair (UTair Aviation, JSC) is the first Russian airline to receive the Russian Transportation Ministry's new license for transporting passengers and cargo by air, the company's press service reported.

The documents were made in accordance with the Russian government decree "On licensing air carriage of passengers and cargo and improving state regulation of air carrier operations". Its entry into force annuls the previous decree "On licensing civil aviation operations".

The new regulations have air operations as the object of their licensing, rather than the right to operate certain routes. Licenses have been issued to UTair Aviation for five years, effective until November 13, 2012.

UTair General Director Andrei Martirosov believes that the next step should be to change the rules of licensing international air operations, as routes are currently determined by bilateral intergovernmental agreements and controlled by airline monopolies.

According to UTair's business plan, its airplanes and helicopters will spend over 220,000 hours in the air in 2007, as the company anticipates to carry more than 3m passengers, as well as introduce some thirty new routes. Helicopter operations will be held in Russia and ten more countries, with helicopter service exports increasing by more than 26 percent.