Originally Posted by
lewinr
PS. A friend of mine in the Russian airline industry tells me that Transaero are bleeding money horribly now, and they will almost certainly need a government bailout.
Exactly, their financials are pretty bad.
Originally Posted by
lewinr
And a condition for the bailout will be replacing leased Boeings and Airbuses with Sukhoi Superjets, FWIW...
Not a chance. They might replace some older 737s with Superjets, but not the new A321s and surely not the 747 jumbos.
As for their success - they are cheap, way cheaper than SU on most routes. They have a very attractive partnership with several banks. $20K spend (or even less at current forex rates) gets you a round-trip award ticket from Moscow to New York or Bangkok IN BUSINESS CLASS. You're right that their J is worse than SU's, but I'll need to spend close to $80K on my Aeroflot CC to get a similar award.