Russian airline Red Wings seeks to expand flights to Tbilisi and Batumi

Russian carrier Red Wings is seeking to expand services to Georgia by applying for permits to operate new routes to Tbilisi and Batumi, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports. According to documents from Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsiya, the airline wants approval for Tbilisi flights from six additional Russian cities: Omsk, Volgograd, Izhevsk, Krasnoyarsk, Saratov, and Surgut. For Batumi, Red Wings requested routes from 17 cities, including Astrakhan, Cherepovets, Ulyanovsk, Syktyvkar, Stavropol, Orenburg, Kaliningrad, Irkutsk, Barnaul, and others, with some overlap such as Surgut, Omsk, Izhevsk, Krasnoyarsk, Volgograd, and Saratov. Permits don’t guarantee launches; Georgian authorization and commercial decisions are still required.