Air taxi and air charter fever has clearly spread across the Atlantic and has now infected the Russians. It is hard to opine about what this really means. Here is the little we do know: Russia has comparatively little or no GA industry when compared with the US, but they do have a many many idle manufacturing facilities and Moscow evidently has a traffic problem. Also, the Russian culture is much more prone to swallow a phrase like Proletariat Air Taxi without too much snickering from the uber wealthy. The only problem with Russia, is that historically only the uber wealthy have ever smelled an airplane. (See Animal Farm, by George Orwell for more on how that works.) However, we are at the dawn of a new era, and all jokes aside, let's see how this unfolds. Will they make money? Is 23 to 15 rubles per mile (80 to 50 cents per mile) enough to stimulate a new market? It is certainly in Proletariat Territory, now let's see if they can get utilization high enough in order to make such low fares work.

Now, the next move would be for someone from the Southwest (circa 1971) StartUp team to head over and lend a hand. While the chain smoking and heavy drinking will certainly help bridge the cultural divide, the next step will be low cost education and promotion of the new service in the marketplace. This news is worthy of following if only because it provides an interesting foil to what air taxi madness is building over on this side of the Atlantic. Without too much VLJ ribbing, we might just add, take a good look at that plane. It has a propeller, looks clunky, but I bet they can make those babies cheap. The Russians are boldly going where no businesses have yet to go, and who knows whether the fundamentals are sound - at least they took the safe route on the aircraft selection.