In March 2024, after a three-year break, domestic air traffic in the Tomsk region will resume. The first flight Tomsk – Kedrovy will be launched, later it is planned to restore flights on the route from Tomsk to Novy Vasyugan with a landing in the settlement of Kargasok. This was reported to TASS by the head of the regional Department of transport, road activity and communication Yuri Baev.
The resumption of air communication is a long-awaited event for residents of remote taiga villages and settlements of the Tomsk region, located in swampy and forest-steppe areas. Air travel is the only way to get there, and its suspension in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic caused numerous inconveniences.
“So far, several airlines have expressed interest in 2024 to start operating flights on the intra-oblast route Tomsk – Kedrovy and later on the route Tomsk – Kargasok – Novy Vasyugan using aircraft of the TVS-2MS type. Air transportations on the route Tomsk – Kedrovy are planned to start in March 2024,” said Yuri Baev.
The airline, which will perform flights on intra-regional routes, will be determined by the results of a request for proposals for such air transportations, added the head of the Regional Department of Transport.
The resumption of air service will contribute to the development of the region’s economy and increase the accessibility of remote district centres and small villages. But most importantly, the resumption of air service will improve the mobility and quality of life of the population.
In April 2023, the Department of Transport of the Tomsk region has already announced its intention to restore air transportations to hard-to-reach areas of the region from 1 June to the end of 2023. We are talking about flights from Tomsk to the town of Kedrovy, as well as the villages of Kargasok and Novy Vasyugan. There is no bus service to these settlements, the administration said at the time. Kedrovy and Novy Vasyugan are located in a hard-to-reach area among the Vasyugan bogs, the only way to reach them is by winter roads or all-terrain vehicles
Earlier, on 31 January 2024, Yuri Baev told RIA Tomsk that Aeroprom Airlines is ready to perform flights on intra-oblast routes. “Of the operating airlines, Aeroprom LLC has confirmed its readiness to start performing flights on the intra-oblast route Tomsk – Kedrovy and later on the route Tomsk – Kargasok – Novy Vasyugan on TVS-2MS (An-2) aircraft from 2024,” the agency wrote.
The TVS-2MS aircraft is a deep modification of the An-2, developed and implemented by the Siberian Aviation Research Institute named after S.Chaplygin. S. Chaplygin (SibNIA). Serial production of these machines is organised in Novosibirsk at RUSAVIAPROM. The main purpose of the An-2 aircraft modification was to replace the piston petrol engine ASH-62IR with a turboprop engine, which was chosen as the Honeywell TRE331-12 engine.
Taking into account the absence of a domestic engine with similar characteristics, RUSAVIAPROM initiated a project to develop a similar Russian turboprop engine by reverse engineering method – reverse engineering.
