Aeroflot (SU, Moscow Sheremetyevo) says it has signed an agreement with Russia's Sberbank for the lease of "at least" fourteen aircraft. As previously reported, the jets are ex-Transaero Airlines (Moscow Vnukovo) stock.

Though neither the airline nor the bank have officially confirmed it, inside sources have told Russia's Vedomosti newspaper that the order does indeed pertain to ten B737-800s and four B747-400s.

Of the aircraft, one B737 will be transferred to Aeroflot this year with the remainder to be phased in between next year and 2017. No date was given for the arrival of the B747s.

Meanwhile, Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) has begun distributing Transaero's traffic rights following the airline's termination of operations earlier this week.

Having secured fifty-six out of Transaero's 156 international routes, Aeroflot this week announced it would shortly commence scheduled flights from its Moscow Sheremetyevo hub to the Kazakh cities of Astana Nursultan Nazarbayev, Almaty International, Aktau, Atyrau, Aktobe and Shymkent.

In terms of domestic routes, Aeroflot, VIM Airlines (Moscow Domodedovo) and Pegas Fly (Orenburg) have been allocated rights to operate from Moscow to Anadyr Ugolny, Magadan, and Blagoveshchensk in Russia's Far East. UTair (UT, Khanty-Mansiysk) also started scheduled Moscow-Anadyr flights this week.