LOS ANGELES, May 17 -- Aeroflot Russian International Airlines said Tuesday it will begin offering twice-weekly flights between Los Angeles and Moscow on Thursday, making it the first airline with direct service between the two cities.
The state airline for the former Soviet Union, which is in the process of becoming privatized, will offer 120 tourist-class seats and 12 business-class seats on the Thursday and Saturday flights on the Russian-built Ilyushin 62 planes.
Aeroflot also will offer 72-hour cargo service between Los Angeles and Moscow.
Aeroflot began service on the West Coast in May 1991 with weekly flights between San Francisco and Khabarovsk and added twice-weekly flights between Moscow and San Francisco in 1992.
It began offering biweekly charters between Los Angeles and Moscow last October, and service from Seattle and Khabarovsk and Magadan last month.
Aeroflot also has direct flights from Moscow to Chicago, New York, Washington, Orlando and Miami.
Aeroflot has been plagued by concerns that its planes are not safe.
The Washington-based International Airline Passengers Association issued a warning last month, advising its members not to travel to, in or over Russia. The association's first-ever blanket warning cites 'overloaded airplanes, lack of cockpit discipline, pilot error, aging aircraft and even missiles fired at civilian airliners in areas of political instability.'
The IAPA's April newsletter says, 'Even at Aeroflot, organized application and monitoring of safety checks, quality maintenance procedures, parts control, and worst of all, aircraft weight and balance control have virtually become a memory.'
More than 70 people were killed in a recent Aeroflot crash in Russia that investigators determined was caused by the pilot's teenaged son, who had been allowed into the cockpit.
Aeroflot spokesman Jo Murray maintained that Aeroflot Russian International Airlines is a separate oper1 '- "ennedy Onassis was described as being in 'excellent' spirits while undergoing treatment Tuesday at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center for an undisclosed illness related to her bout with cancer of the lymph nodes.
Her longtime spokeswoman, Nancy Tuckerman, said the former first lady was 'doing fine, being treated for a care-related illness, and her spirits are excellent.'
Tuckerman said Onassis 'should be home within a few days.'
The 64-year-old Onassis, widow of President John F. Kennedy and shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in January.
This is the second time within a month she has been in the same hospital. Onassis was treated in April for a bleeding ulcer believed to be related to her cancer treatment.
Onassis, who was released April 21 after surgery, works as a book editor at Doubleday. Her two children, John Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, as well as her long as her longtime companion, Maurice Tempelsman, have been frequent bedside visitors.NEWLN: (Written by William M. Reilly in New York; edited by Tracy Connor)
