Ural Airlines and Yekaterinburg branch of Vympelcom (aka Beeline) looked at the success of their joint project known as Cell Retail aboard Ural Airlines that was first launched about a year ago and is available on all of the carrier’s flights.

The airline’s press officer repots the project is mainly targeted at offering extra services to Beeline subscribers who choose to use Ural Airlines as well. While in flight, passengers can purchase 100-, 250-, and 500-ruble phone cards and Beeline subscription packages.

‘We keep updating the range of passenger services on regular basis; some of these services eventually grow outdated, others prove to become more and more popular. The Ural Airlines-Beeline joint project is quite successful, so we intend to keep doing business together,’ Ural Airlines Commercial Director Kirill Skuratov says.

The Cell Retail aboard Ural Airlines Project was started in August 2006 when the two companies signed an agreement regarding the sale of Beeline goods and services aboard the carrier’s planes as well as regarding an accompanying advertising campaign.

The carrier’s customers proved to be a desirable target audience for cell phone operators, who get a chance of enticing a unique audience into using them when selling their goods and informing their potential customers about the new offers aboard the plane.

'More and more people can afford to travel by air nowadays, which means planes are becoming an increasingly effective way of promoting one’s products. It does not really matter if this product is cell communication or something else. When we advertise through Ural Airlines, we seek to reach out to dynamic people who want reliable connection at all times. We appreciate our being able to take part in this project, since it helps us handle a whole range of issues simultaneously, from providing our current customers with first-class service to attracting new ones,’ says the director of Vympelcom’s Yekaterinburg-based subsidiary Igor Petrov.