I like to stay up-to-date on airlines from all over the world, but admit Europe’s fastest growing airline took me by surprise. In fact, I had never even heard of it.
I’m talking about Pobeda, a low-cost subsidiary of Aeroflot based in Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport. The budget carrier was founded in 2014 and has now been flying for nearly five years.
Pobeda currently has a fleet of 30 737-800 aircraft in a single cabin configuration with 189 seats. Not only does it serve many domestic destinations within the Russian Federation, it also serves cities in:
- Armenia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Bulgaria
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Georgia
- Germany
- Italy
- Kazakhstan
- Latvia
- Montenegro
- Netherlands
- Slovakia
- Spain
- Turkey
- United Arab Emirates
In total, it serves 78 destinations and is now the 29th largest carrier in Europe.
This winter, while many airlines pare back their schedules, Pobeda will grow by 34.3%. That’s way more than WizzAir, its closest competitor who will grow 23.5% this winter. Paren5 company Aeroflot will trim its schedule by 3%.
Pobeda has 737MAX aircraft on order, but troubles with that aircraft will not slow down its growth plans. Instead, Rossiya Airlines, also part of the Aeroflot group, will transfer additional 737-800s to Pobeda.
An Overnight 40% Fare Increase
There may be a problem for Pobeda, though. Pobeda styles itself after Ryanair. Fares are dirt cheap, but you’ll pay for everything. A Russian court just ruled this week that Pobeda cannot charge for airport check-in. Currently, you can check in “for free” at an airport counter in Russia, but in Europe you will be charged if you avoid online check-in.
With Pobeda no longer able to charge for check-in, it has announced that it will add a flat 25EUR to ticket prices by the end of the month. Based upon historic fares, that represents a 40% increase in average ticket price.
CONCLUSION
For an airline that I’ve never heard of it prior to today, I’m surprised at how large it has grown and plans to grow. Time will tell if the fare increase planned for later this month will hurt those rapid growth plans.
Have you flown Pobeda?
image: Pobeda
Just as an interesting tidbit, pobeda means victory in the Russian language.
Lol. How much scarier could it possibly get than flying a budget Russian carrier?
probably better than flying Spirit or Allegiant.
How rude. Pobeda is the biggest Russian aircompany subsidiary and I see that they know how to make a good cabin crew. Go try it and love it !
Btw, no direct flights to Georgia from Russia from July 19 so your info is out of date, dear author
In 2014 Aeroflot created a low-cost subsidiary called Dobrolet (which was Aeroflot’s original name in 1923) and it started to fly to Simferopol in Crimea from Moscow. The EU imposed sanctions on Dobrolet for this, and it was forced to end operations after just a few months. Aeroflot then formed another low-coster Pobeda (which still doesn’t fly to Crimea. Aeroflot does tho, as do many other Russian airlines. EU did not dare impose sanctions against Aeroflot for this).
Interesting tidbit!
Well, it’s absolutely right someone noticed, that Pobeda means victory in Russian. It actually means a victory of a state owned business over a private one. Now this “fast growing” company is the first and best in being the ugliest, the rudest, the most unpredictable and the most uncomfortable for passengers aircompany in the world. Pobeda is the source of lots of mems in the Russian part of internet, jokes. Evaluating someone’s work they say: you did it worse than Pobeda. I flew twice with them and will never repeat that experience again. It looks like their staff is trained in some camps to be rude and aggressive to the clients.
Hello everyone. I live in Moscow now but my hometown is 1000 km away from here. So my favourite mode to get there is by air. I should say that most of the times I opt for Pobeda Airlines and cabin crew have always given good service. Maybe, it’s only my experience but…
And one more thing, People in Russia tend to deteriorate image of many things thay have. It’s seen in previous comment from Eugene).