‘I am positive that, under the current economically unstable circumstances, quite a few Russian carriers are going to survive this winter. A lot of them might have to leave the market,’ Ural Airlines’ General Director Sergey Skuratov announced in the course of a recent press conference.

‘We are already getting proposals from some smaller market players who suggest we could merge. Then, we had a merger proposal from Aeroflot as well, but we backed out of this offer. I believe our company is strong enough to get through the crisis and remain an independent entity,’ Skuratov said.