Vladivostok Air
airline
JSC Vladivostok Air (also Vladivostok Avia; Russian: ОАО Владивосток Авиа) (IATA: XF, ICAO: VLK) was an independent airline with its head office at the airport in Artyom, Primorski Krai, Russia. In 2011, it was reacquired by Aeroflot.
Description
As the largest carrier in the Russian Far East and Siberia, Vladivostok Air operated scheduled domestic flights within Russia and international flights to Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as charter flights and a well established helicopter service. The main hub of operations was Vladivostok International Airport, with secondary hubs at Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport and Khabarovsk Novy International Airport and a focus city in Ekaterinburg Koltsovo Airport.
Prior to late September 2008, only a few flights between the cities of Vladivostok and Khabarovsk were available on Vladivostok Air, but when the Russian government decided to close Dalavia, due to high debt levels, Vladivostok Air soon announced the start of seven additional domestic routes and four new international routes from Khabarovsk.
History
Beginnings
The 1930s saw active construction of airports in the Soviet republics throughout the USSR. The Primorye region gained its first airport in 1931. Construction also began on two airfields; a hydro-airport (seaplane port) in Vladivostok's Second River region and another named Ozernye Klyuchi (Lake Springs/Озерные Ключи), (which is now part of the current Vladivostok International Airport) near Artyom.
On 27 August 1932, a hydroplane (seaplane) destined to become the predecessor of Vladivostok Air completed its first flight and on 2 September, the hydroplane delivered four passengers from Khabarovsk to the Second River Airport marking. This is considered to be the official beginning of operations for Vladivostok Air, with regular flights from Khabarovsk to Vladivostok ever since.
In 1934, the Second River airport was moved to a dry location, allowing for the use of Polikarpov Po-2 aircraft, with which regular flights were made, and new airports also opened at Iman (now called Dalnerechensk) and Ozernye Klyuchi (Lake Springs) which, combined with newer aircraft, greatly fueled growth of the nascent airline.
The public source identifies “Vladivostok Air” as airline. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Vladivostok and airline.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1068446. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2011, 2008, 1931 and 1932.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vladivostok Air” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.