OREANDA-NEWS. UTair Aviation named one of its Boeing 737-800 aircraft after Alexander Protozanov, a prominent political and public figure in Russia.

A high-ranking politician in the 1950s and 1960s, Alexander Protozanov made a huge contribution to the development of civil aviation in the Tyumen region and the creation of aviation infrastructure in Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets regions.

Protozanov was in charge of the aviation industry in Tyumen from its very beginning through the development of the Western Siberian oil fields. He directly contributed to building and launching the Roshchino and Plekhanovo Airports in Tyumen. He was awarded various medals, including the Lenin Prize, the Order of the October Revolution, the Order of the Friendship of Peoples, and a six-time awardee of the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

UTair Boeing 737-800 aircraft, christened Alexander Protozanov, operates flights from the Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow.

UTair Aviation maintains a tradition of naming its aircraft since 1999. UTair aircraft have been named after such prominent figures as Nikolai Baibakov, Vasily Bakhilov, Antonina Grigorieva, Roman Kuzovatkin, Vladimir Kuleshov, Konstantin Luzhetskiy, Roman Marchenko, Viktor Muravlenko, Petr Panov, Farman Salmanov and Boris Shcherbina, all significant contributors to the development of the civil aviation and oil and gas industries of the Tyumen region.

UTair Aviation ranks among the top three Russian airlines. In 2013 UTair Aviation aircraft transported 9,625,295 passengers and the combined UTair Group fleet transported 10,413,803 passengers. UTair Aviation operates more than 150 fixed wing aircraft and performs flights to 110 destinations in Russia and abroad. The airline maintains its central hub at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, from which it performs more than 100 flights daily.