AEROFLOT
(Аэрофлот)
By the late 1920s, the Bolshevik government began to view corporations like Dobrolet with great suspicion. The communist leaders were intent on wiping out all private ownership. As a result, on 29 October, 1930, the government combined Dobrolet with the government's Main Administration of the Civil Air Fleet into one state-owned organization. Later, on 26 March, 1932, the Civil Air Fleet was renamed Aeroflot, a word created by combining "Aero" with "flot," the Russian word for fleet. By this time, Aeroflot had about 200 aircraft.
In order to reduce its reliance on foreign aircraft, the Soviet government decided in 1935 to use only domestically designed transport aircraft for air service. By the mid-1930s, such Soviet workhorses as Kalinin's K-5, Tupolev's ANT-9, and Bartini's Steel-7 began wide use as part of Aeroflot. One of the most spectacular Russian aircraft of the period was Tupolev's ANT-20, a giant six-engine airplane that could carry more than 70 passengers. One foreign aircraft that remained popular, despite the government order, was the American DC-3, which was license-built in Russia under the name Li-2.
Aeroflot had three main goals: to operate an air transport system; to provide
different types of services such as aerial surveying, forest-fire fighting,
and agricultural spraying; and to promote educational, recreational, and
athletic activities for the public. Aeroflot, in fact, represented all
aviation activities in the country that were not military. Civil aviation in
Russian in the 1930s remained, however, closely tied to the military.
For example, Aeroflot was considered to be a reserve for the Air Force's
Military Transport Aviation. Through most of its existence, a military
officer was the chief of Aeroflot.
Aeroflot introduced the Tupolev ANT-20 "Maxim Gorki" in the first years of
service.
It was a luxurious airliner that carried 75 passengers in comfort.
Who flew Aeroflot in the 1930s? Without doubt, its most important
service was as a freight and mail carrier. In 1939, in fact, Aeroflot
finally passed the United States in terms of its volume of air freight, which
made up 85 percent of all Aeroflot services. For the most part,
passengers were not paying "private" individuals, but rather government or
military officials. In one sense, civil aviation in the USSR served a
very different purpose than in almost all other countries in the world.
In the Soviet Union, civil aviation was less a travel service than a way for
the central government to economically develop the remote areas of the vast
country. Aeroflot's service by the end of the 1930s spread to almost all
of the Soviet Union, from Ukraine all the way to Siberia and desolate Central
Asia.
Two other aircraft in the early Aeroflot fleet. A Tupolev ANT-14 and
Tupolev ANT-37bis
Service throughout the 1930s continued to be poor. There were very few flights during the winter to remote places, mostly because of the poor weather. Although the country had as many as 150 airports, many were simply primitive fields with unsurfaced runways. The aircraft were often obsolete, and the Soviet government rarely showed any interest in improving service. Passenger fares were also rather steep for the average Soviet person. For example, a flight from Khabarovsk to Okha could cost as much as 350 rubles in the 1930s—half of an average worker's monthly salary. International routes were not a priority for Aeroflot, partly because of the xenophobia of the Stalinist regime. It was only in 1936 that the Soviets opened a Moscow-Prague route, and then eventually one to Stockholm in Sweden. These flights were only a small fraction of Aeroflot's overall service. By the beginning of World War II, Aeroflot was mainly a domestic freight career.
Timetable form 1939
