Airlines in the Soviet Union
Initial plans for a civil air fleet in the Soviet Union were drawn up in January 1921, and operations began the following May with the large Sikorsky-built, four-engine, Ilya Mouromets bombers, converted to civil service, flying passengers and mail over the Moscow-Orel-Kursk-Kharkov route. The aircraft were also used to carry passengers between Moscow and Nizhne Novgorod for a time in the summer of 1922.
Sikorsky S-22 Ilya Mouromet airliner
On 17 March, 1923, an airline company named Dobrolet was formed, and this began regular services between Moscow and Nizhne Novgorod in July. Two other airlines were also founded in that same year: Zakavia (based in Tiflis), and Ukrvozdukhput (at Kharkov in the Ukraine). These two airlines later merged and inaugurated several important internal routes.
In April, 1924 a Central Asian subdivision of Dobrolet was formed to operate services in the Tashkent-Samarkand-Termez area, and a seaplane service was also started between Sevastopol, Yalta and Yevpatoriya; during the next two years other internal services were opened to Kiev, Odessa, and Rostov.
Until now, all international services had been undertaken by Deruluft, the joint Soviet-German air company, but in July 1926 Dobrolet initiated service from Verkhne-Udinsk in Siberia to Urga in Mongolia, and in September that year another service was started between Tashkent and Kabul, in Afghanistan. Much attention was paid during this period to providing regular air services to various points in Siberia, where natural resources were beginning to be exploited on a large scale, and where extremes of climate made surface transport difficult. From 1929, the principal feeder-liner used by Dobrolet was the nine-passenger Tupolev ANT-9, while Polikarpov U-2, three-seat light aircraft were used over short distances. Nevertheless, most of the aircraft used by Dobrolet up to 1930 were still of foreign manufacture.
On 25 February, 1932, all civil aviation activities in the Soviet Union came under the control of the Chief Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet, and on 25 March the state airline was renamed Aeroflot. New transport aircraft of indigenous design, such as the ANT-20 “Maxim Gorky”, were progressively introduced on to Aeroflot’s internal routes, but in 1939 there were still no international services other than those to Mongolia and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, during the 1930s Soviet aviators and aircraft carried out important long-range pioneering work over the Arctic, and only the outbreak of war brought a halt to plans for a trans-polar service to the United States.
Airlines in the Soviet Union
Aeroflot
Deruluft (Soviet-German joint-venture)
Dobrolet
Ukrvozdukhput
Zakavia
