During the mid-late 1990s there was a wide variety of rather obscure airlines being formed within Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Aeroflot’s iron grip on civil aviation duties. Some never acquired much in the way of their own identities however even some that did, like Transeuropean, appeared and disappeared quickly leaving little evidence of themselves.
IATA CODE: UE ICAO CODE: TEP CALLSIGN: TRANSEURLINE
Transeuropean Airlines (Трансевропейские авиалинии) was a charter airline based in Russia. It operated charter flights between Moscow Sheremetyevo and popular holiday destinations, mostly Barcelona and Antalya. The airline was formed in 1996 and by early 1999 the fleet comprised at least 2 Ilyushin IL-86s and 1 Tupolev TU-154M (RA-85799). One of the IL-86s wore the full colours, whilst the other, RA-86062 wore a much simpler scheme with cheatline. Several Tu-154s had been leased in 1997/98 but the fleet was never much larger than 3 or 4 aircraft at a time.
The airline had rather grandiosly ordered a pair of IL-96s although they were never delivered. Impressively however the airline did take delivery of a Tupolev TU-204-100 (RA-64018) in May 1999 and had a second on order.
The second TU-204 never arrived as sometime in late 2000 the airline went bankrupt. The first TU-204 went on to join Kras Air as did at least one of the IL-86s.
The IL-86 made by JC-Wings in 1:400 scale, RA-86145, was a late production example built in 1991 and delivered originally to AJT Air International. By April 1997 she was wearing Transeuropean colours but by May 2000 had taken up Kras Air titles. Kras Air continued to operate her in Transeuropean livery for over 7 years though eventually she was repainted in the AirUnion colours. Following their collapse in 2008 she was stored and was still to be seen by late 2010 without engines at Krasnoyarsk.
