Russian airlines - from Dobroleta to Aeroflot

People of the middle and older generation sometimes remember nostalgically with unobtrusive advertising of the Soviet times calling for flying by Aeroflot planes. Posters with this slogan were hanging near ticket offices and simply in crowded places, there was no commercial sense in it, as there were no competitors for this air carrier.

The current company of JSC "Aeroflot - Russian Airlines" is a direct descendant of this powerful organization, which unites enterprises of the most diverse profile. The emblem depicting a sickle and a hammer framed by wings, with good-natured humor called "chicken", was applied to the fuselages of various models of non-military equipment. Agricultural, polar, research, meteorological, super-heavy transport, government, in general, any aviation - all this was Aeroflot. And this is not counting the main direction, that is, the transportation of passengers. Of course, there were cases when the airline's services were used by the defencists, and in the event of war there were plans for an almost instantaneous transition to servicing the army needs.

Today, "Russian Airlines" is one of the largest companies in the world, its technical fleet uses the most modern types of aircraft, both domestic and imported. However, this is only a continuation of the glorious traditions of the Soviet era. The phrase "for the first time in the world" was often used in relation to Aeroflot achievements.

The company "Dobrolet" was founded in 1923, in 1932 it received the name, which became a trademark, one of the most famous in the world, which was inherited by Russian airlines. The winged emblem became a symbol of reliability and a high culture of service, especially on international flights.

Before the war, air travel was not very prominent in the overall passenger flow, although the foundation of the future power of the company "Russian Airlines" was laid back in 1939, when the Stalinist leadership decided to acquire a US company Douglas license for the production of DC-3. At that time this type of aircraft was the most perfect in the class of passenger and transport aviation, in the USSR it was produced under the index "Li-2". Heavenly hard worker greatly helped during the military raids, and then, after the Victory, he began to use it for passenger transportation.

Then the main passenger traffic took on the medium-haul IL-14, then allied and Russian airlines took the An-24. For long-distance flights, the first in the world jet propulsion planes Tu-104 and turboprops Tu-114 have been used since 1956.

Enumeration of all types of aircraft, which applied the company "Russian Airlines", would occupy not one page of a slim text. Everything was there: small ones, like an minibus, An-2, An-14 "Bee", L-410, and huge Ani transporters, and even a supersonic Tu-144.

After the collapse of the USSR, Aeroflot became a Russian airline. Having survived the difficult nineties, he again took a strong position in the domestic and international air transportation market.

From the Soviet "Aeroflot" "Russian Airlines" is distinguished by the presence in the aircraft park, in addition to domestic Ilov and Dry American Boeing and the European "Airbus". The emblem remained the same, although on the tail emplacement the place of the red hammer-flagged flag took the white-blue-red tricolor.