| Not too many years ago the TU-154 was a daily visitor in Düsseldorf. I remember the times when we had the apron filled with 5 or more TU5 in the early mornings of summer-most of them were owned by Air Via Bulgarian Airlines (they now operate an A320 fleet), Bulgarian Air Charter (BUC) (they now operate MD80's), and Aeroflot (they are currently phasing out their last Tu5's I believe). Throughout the day the Air Via TU5's would return to do another run to Bulgaria (Varna, Bourgas and Sofia if I remember right), Aeroflot would send at least one more TU5 on one of their three daily flights from Düsseldorf to Moscow Sheremetyevo, Sibir Airlines had a daily afternoon service from Düsseldorf to Moscow-Domodedovo and Pulkovo/Rossiya had two daily flights to St Petersburg and one to Moscow-Vnukovo-all of them were operated by TU-154! In addition to that Aeroflot-Don and Ural Airlines had a weekly flight on Sundays during the Summer to Rostov and Jekaterinburg using the Tu-154. a Pulkovo TU 154M is taking off to St Petersburg. Nowadays there is not a single scheduled Tu5 service left in Düsseldorf, all the mentioned airlines replaced their TU5 services with B737 and Airbus A32X. Ural Airlines and Donavia discontinued their weekly flights into Düsseldorf in the summer of 2008 I really hope to see them again someday. I really miss the TU5's with their unique wing and tail shapes. The sound was unmistakable and loud. The last TU5 flight in Düsseldorf was a Rossiya Flight to St ... |
