ELK AIR (ESTONIAN AVIATION COMPANY, LTD.): Eesti Va-banik, Majaka Str. 26, Tallinn, EE0014, Estonia; Phone 372 22 11 929; Fax 372 62 11 978; Http://www/elk. ee; Code S8; Year Founded 1991. Elk Air is established at Tallinn on October 23, 1991 to offer both passenger and cargo services to international, regional, and domestic destinations on both a charter and scheduled basis. Rita Lillpuu is chairman/CEO, with Alexander Belousov as board chairman/president.
A workforce of 103 is assembled, together with a fleet of 3 Tupolev Tu-154Ms and 2 Let L-410s. Revenue flights commence on May 19, 1992 and continue during 1993-1998. Scheduled destinations visited include Turku, Helsinki, Riga, and St. Petersburg, while charters are mounted throughout Europe and the CIS.
Enplanements during the latter year total 13,000.
Airline employment stands at 89 in 1999.
The company is now run by the husband-and-wife team of Rita Lillepuu, board chairman, and Alexander Belousov, president. The fleet, which Belousov defends as adequate for the carrier’s present requirements, comprises 1 Antonov An-26, 2 Let L-410UVPs, 1 Tu-154M, and 1 Tu-134A. These aircraft are employed on scheduled services to Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as charters.
During the spring, a British Aerospace BAe Jetstream 31 turboprop joins the fleet. By fall, Belousov has changed his mind and has begun to advocate the need for Western-made jetliners. Plans are also made to open new routes within a year from Tallinn to Kiev, Riga, and Prague.
To provide needed housing for a more-modern fleet, construction is begun on a new hangar at Tallinn Airport in mid-November. It will join a fuel terminal also due for completion shortly. In order that already laid access roads and established offices might be employed, the complex is being built on the site of a factory.
Enplanements for the year total 11,000.
The size of the workforce is unchanged at the beginning of 2000.
On March 29, Estonian Air Corporation, A. S. cancels Elk’s permission to operate a competing service from Tallinn to Moscow. In retaliation, Russian aviation authorities order Estonian flights halted, as Elk Air is a partner of Aeroflot Russian International Airlines (ARIA). The dispute over flights to Moscow leads both companies on April 6 to suspend all service to the Russian capital from Tallinn.
On December 14, Chairman Lillepuu arrives at the office of the airline’s president, her husband Alexander Belousov, and informs him of the board’s decision to fire him. She orders her bodyguards to physically remove him from the premises. When the ex-CEO and his bodyguards attempt to reenter the offices later in the day, they are prohibited. The local press, in revealing these developments, also notes that Ms. Lillepuu’s lieutenants will not even allow her husband to reenter their joint home to retrieve his clothes, mobile phone, or other personal belongings.
J. V. ELLIOT AIR SERVICE, LTD.: Canada (1926-1928). Former Laurentide Air Services, Ltd. pilot J. V. “Jack” Elliot forms his own company at Toronto in early 1926 to operate services in the Rouyn area. On March 6, from a base at Rolling Portage, Ontario, he undertakes the first airmail flight to the Red Lake gold mining region.
During the remainder of the year, a total of 587 passengers, 800 pounds of mail, and a ton of freight are transported.
Customers, express, and mail operations continue until the company is taken over by Canadian Airways, Ltd. in January 1928.
World History
