NORTHERN AVIATION 

Aviation is a crucial element of development in the North, and particularly in the Arctic, where the road system is not developed. While both commercial and small private aviation are well-developed in Northern Europe and North America, areas like Northern Russia and North-eastern Asia are looking at developing private airlines, restructuring airports, attracting foreign airlines and developing small aviation. The Northern Forum supports these efforts and facilitates the participation of stakeholders from all sectors of the industry in international conferences.

Another characteristic of Northern regions is that aviation routes are usually along North-South corridors. This hampers interregional connections, and forces passengers and freights to travel long distances to the South to connect to neighboring regions. The idea of East-West corridors has been around for many years, and the Northern Forum is one of its strongest supporters in the North. The Northern Forum also collaborates with the Circumpolar Infrastructure Task Force (CITF) to assess the feasibility of circumpolar air routes, linking regions at the level of the 60th parallel, and also look into polar air routes between continents.

Training

In order to encourage the development of air connections between Northern regions,  a marketing and sales training session for Russian Far East airlines was organized in May 2006 in Alaska, with the participation of Yakutia Airlines, Chukotavia, Magadan Airlines and Sakhalin Airlines.

2006 Aviation Training Photo Gallery (pdf) 

Infrastructures

There are seven airports in the Russian Far East that are officially designated for international flights:

Providenya Anadyr Magadan Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Khabarovsk Vladivostok

Anadyr's new airport

Khabarovsk domestic terminal

Nonetheless, air companies interested in flying to these destinations are advised to check the facilities at the airports to ensure that the type of aircraft they are planning to use can land and be serviced at these airports. The CITF has developed an interractive map of airports in the North at http://www.institutenorth.org/mapinterface.html

Small aviation

Small aviation falls into two categories:

• commercial flights on small planes to link villages in the North;
• private planes operated by individuals.

Chukotka - Antonov 3

In the Russian North, small commercial planes of the Antonov-2 and 3 type were operated to serve off-road villages until the 70's when they were gradually replaced by government-subsidized helicopters. By the mid-90's, it became apparent that the subsidies were no longer sufficient to support helicopter flights, and in all these regions, government-owned and private air companies are weighing their options to ensure services to the villages. The Northern Forum greatly encourages and supports Russian air companies as they are studying the development of small aviation, and organizes visits to Alaskan small aviation companies on a regular basis. These visits serve not only to see how flight schedules are managed, but also how tickets are sold, how passengers are services and how freight is being shipped to remote locations.