Regional air carrier NordStar Airlines has become Russia’s latest member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) global airlines’ grouping.

Membership of the worldwide association, which consists of some 300 airlines, will encourage NordStar to adopt the best international practices, introduce the latest technologies and passenger services, benefit from new and established IATA products and share initiatives on aviation industry development with colleagues, the airline believes.

NordStar, which is wholly owned by Russia’s Norilsk Nickel MMC mining and smelting giant, is also hoping to develop cooperative relationships with other participants in the global airline business, in particular entering into code-share agreements, expanding its geography of flights, as well as upgrading its range of offerings to passengers, the airline says in a statement.

The first step towards joining the association was the completion by NordStar of an IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) in 2017.

10 Russian airlines are currently members of IATA. They are Aeroflot and its subsidiary Rossiya Airlines, Nordavia (Smartavia), Nordwind Airlines, Pegas Fly (Ikar Airlines), S7 Airlines, Ural Airlines, Utair – and also the two specialist cargo carriers of Volga-Dnepr and its subsidiary AirBridgeCargo.

NordStar currently operates a fleet of Boeing 737-800 narrow-body airliners and ATR 42-500 turboprops across a network of more than 50 scheduled domestic and international destinations from its base airports at Moscow’s Domodedovo and Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. The airline has three Boeing 737МАХ-8 aircraft in order.

In the first seven months of this year, the airline, which is ranked as the 16th largest Russian carrier, transported some 707,120 passengers, down by 14.6 per cent year-on-year.