S7 Airlines has rebranded itself to its former name 'Siberian Airlines', in an effort to raise awareness and funds for Siberian reforestation efforts.
What are the details?
As reported by the Siberian Times (the excellent newspaper that brought us the 'Bear Invades Airport' story), S7 Airlines has taken an active step in healing its native Siberian forests by raising funds to replant over a million trees.
They have done this in two stages.
- The first is by renaming and rebranding the airline temporarily from S7 Airlines to Siberian Airlines (which was the original name of their airline). This includes changing their livery to Siberian Airlines on select aircraft
- Contributing 1.4 EUR for every ticket sold on the airline to conservation efforts.
On their website they had the following statement (Translated):
"Siberia is the birthplace of our airline. We can not stay away from the environmental situation in the region. Forest fires in Siberia have spread to more than 3 million hectares. We are temporarily returning our historical name, Siberia Airlines, and we are launching an initiative to replenish forests in Siberia. Our goal is to raise funds for planting 1,000,000 trees. We will return to the S7 Airlines brand only after the required amount has been collected."
Siberia has suffered massive forest fires that have devastated more than three million hectors of forested land. Commentators on the original article were quick to praise the airline and suggest that they could contribute more
"I would like to join such an initiative and donate. This should be a common effort of all people interested in environmental protection. It is also important to help the hundreds of wild animals affected by the disaster. My thoughts are with all those affected by fire in the region of Siberia" - Bianca Bretan, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Thus far they have raised enough to plant 101,000 trees. Passengers are encouraged to contribute themselves if they want to raise more money than the 1.4 EUR per ticket.
Who are S7 and Siberian Airlines?
S7, or as they will be known for now as Siberian Airlines, is the second biggest airline in Russia. The carrier is a Oneworld Alliance member, a club which includes American Airlines, Finnair, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, LATAM, and Japan Airlines. It flies to 150 destinations and has a mammoth amount of code-share flights with plenty of European and Asian carriers. It also works hand in hand with Aeroflot, the Russian flag carrier.
It is Russia's biggest domestic airline and operates a mixed Airbus and Boeing fleet of 101 aircraft. They also have two Boeing 737 MAX 8s that are currently grounded.
The airline only actually changed its name to S7 back in 2005. Previously, it was known as Siberian Airlines since 1992 when it was founded during the fall of the Soviet Union.
What do you think about this news? Should more airlines contribute to the environment like this? Let us know in the comments.