Chicago Best,
Not to step on anyones feet but as the owner of The Best of Kamchatka and having been on the leading edge of just about every single issue you discuss I would like to weigh in.. Ruth is not correct. None of the flights failed because of lack of profitability. There was a great study published by The Institute of the North which defined many of the reasons. Alaska Air had problems on Sakhalin not lack of profitability. I flew on the last flight with Tom Holmes the then station manager in Petro and it was a sad day.
Dalavia in my opinion pulled out because they had cold feet and some of the larger outfitters and tour companies had already made alternative plans prior to their announcement. Frankly I think the bad feelings of Magadan Airlines behavior spills forward to this day.
Magadan Airlines was 100 million in debt due to theft at the highest levels of the company. It was my understanding the the Kamchatka route was one of the most profitable in the long history of Reeves Airlines and the loss of the Red Dog Mine contract was the real reason for their bankruptcy.
Flying with Evergreen Air is a completely unrealistic.
I work closely with Red Star Travel and we did switch our customers, all 186 of them thru Seoul. It was ok but not as convenient as the Alaska routing.
I spoke with Vlad Avia for 2 hours Monday night and have a good feel for their plans. It is my understanding they will announce officially in early December but the final price and schedule will come out any day. As for cheap, it is not cheap to get to Kamchatka any other way so why not pay the price for the convenience. It was almost $1500 for the ticket with Alaska back in the 90's. I think that people who have been to the RFE and understand what a fantastic place it is will come out of the woodwork for this flight. I also am not holding my breath but after a long talk with the FAA in Anchorage this afternoon and the folks at Alaska Airport it seems as though this may be the real deal. If anyone would like to read the feasibility study email me and I will send it to you.
Will Blair
Will, I really appreciate you taking the time to update us on this. I think you can appreciate how hard it is to sit here in Chicago and try to figure out what is going on in a Cyrillic website, or what kind of travel gosspi you can get by calling remote airports.
I found Vlad Air's FAA Request for Waiver and decision on the Internet. I printed it out but it is in some file somewhere.
One thing I am NOT holding my breath for is a stovoer in Ducth Harbor, or any air connection between Dutch Harbor and Russia or Japan.
AIR VLADIVOSTOK NOW HAS THIS PRESS RELEASE ONTS WEBSITE. HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!!!!!
November 8, 2007American Surprise
It is not an overstatement to say that Vladivostok Air has an important event in the works for its existing and future passengers. The airline will operate regular flights to the American continent for the first time in the company history.
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky — Anchorage (Alaska, USA) — Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky flights are scheduled under the summer flight timetable of 2008. The civil aviation authorities has already authorized the airline to operate regular flights. The company experts are currently developing the destination fares and agreeing on the timetable.
Vladivostok — Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky — Vladivostok connecting flight will be operated specially for this service, which will clearly link the Siberia and Far East of Russia with Alaska. The airline expects that the new service will become popular with lovers of outdoor activities not only from Russia but also from Korea, China, Singapore and Thailand as there is a demand for the direct aircraft service with Alaska.
It is noteworthy that the new service is perfectly in line with the spirit of geographic “discoveries” by the Far-Eastern airline. It was Vladivostok Air who became the first official carrier for Vladivostok — Beijing or Vladivostok — Hanoi services not so long ago; it was also the first airline in the history of civil aviation to operate a nonstop flight from Vladivostok to Saint-Petersburg onboard TU-204-300.
PR Service
Vladivostok Air
oso@vladavia.ru
Chicago,
I received an email from the point person at Vlad Avia late last week and another yesterday. They are currently finishing the schedule and should release it this week along with a price. I am not at liberty to discuss the exact schedule but I will say it looks very promising. The fact of the matter is for this flight to succeed everyone involved needs to be part of the program. Not to complain but I truly believe if last year everyone involved with Russian Far East travel would have been positive and taken steps to work with Dalavia they would have flown. There was and is still a lot of negativity within the travel industry concerning trusting Russian Air carriers. I can understand as I was sent a certified letter from the General Director of Magadan in May of 2006 insisting that they would continue to fly the US route, complete fabrication. That said I have a lot more faith in Vlad Avia having flown with them the last two summers. They have nice equipment and their office responds professionally and in a timely fashion, a rarity for Russians.
Thanks for the update, Will. This is indeed exciting news. My wife just got her vacation approved so that looks good too. Price and talking her into another Alaska trip will be the hard part!
From what I know Air Vladivostok is a good carrier, a lot better than some of the carriers I have flown.
I imagine this means Dalavia wil;l NOT do the route because I don't see them going head on head with Vlad Avia, at least for the first summer.
One of the easons I see potential in this route is that Alaska already has almost a million affluent package tourists each summer. Tour operators could offer a very special and unique add-on with this route. Many towns in Alaska have been ruined by the way the cruise company has put local businsses under and so on so I hope that does not happen to Kamchatka anytime soon!
Oh, this is the new 'How to get to Abkhazia'...
And I'd love to go to Kamchatka, been fascinated with it for some time now, though whenever it materializes for me it will be with transsiberian.
The Abkhazia thread is great. I learned a lot...
By the way, there are some interesting ways of seeing Abkhazia and Kamchatka on the same trip. S7 Siberian Airlines flies to Kamchatka from its hub in Novosibirsk as well as to Adler, the airport for Sochi right on the border with Abkhazia. There is also an Adler-Abakan train that takes 5 days and goes through some really out of the way places including the charming Magnitogorsk, one of the worst cities in Russia. Abakan is also the jumping off point for TuVa and Tuva Avia now flies 4 times a week to Kransoyarsk, which IS a pretty location for a city. It blew me away I must say. I think Kras Air also flies to Vlaidivostok but I read the Cyrillic alphabest so slowly I gave up and Boris Berezovsky has been no help in this matter!
Is Tuva as fantastic a destination as Kamchatka and Abkhazia?
By the way, Alaska Airlines last week offered incredibly cheap one-way fares to Alaska that would hook up with Vlad Avia's weekly flight to paradise, also known as Petrapavlodsk-Kamchatsy.
Hi All,
My brother is very interested in visiting Kamchatka. So, from the US (actually Chicago!) what would the routing to Kamchatka look like? Can you get a flight from Seoul, like an earlier poster said? Thanks for any advice.
Time for an update...
Air Vladivostok will NOT start this service in April. Their web page says maybe in July. Vlad Air did fly a test flight from Vladivostok to Saipan, which was cleared under FAA rules and they brag about it a little bit. I think the safety cleaance is still the issue.
To answer the last question, there are lots of flights from Chicago to Seoul. From there you can fly to Vladivostok and then to Kamchatka. Until the Alaska route open up this seems to be a good route.
Seoul is a big interesting city with good hostels, food and transport.
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