Ural Airlines (U6, Ekaterinburg) is switching the origin for its planned London Stansted service, as it will launch flights from Moscow Domodedovo rather than Zhukovsky, as it had originally intended.

The 4x weekly service is due to commence on December 20, and will see the Russian carrier use its 156-seat A320-200s on the 1,339 nautical mile (2,480 kilometre) route. For the time being, it has elected not to use its two factory-fresh A320-200neo on the flagship route.

This will be Ural Airlines' only service to the UK as it becomes the second designated Russian carrier on the route, in line with the existing bilateral agreements between Russia and the UK which limits each country to only two serving airlines. In the winter season, the carrier will operate services to Larnaca, Rimini, Bordeaux Mérignac, Munich, Venice Marco Polo, and Barcelona El Prat in Western Europe.

Ural Airlines joins the three incumbent carriers operating between the UK and Russian capital cities. According to the ch-aviation schedules module, Aeroflot (SU, Moscow Sheremetyevo) currently offers 32 weekly frequencies between Moscow Sheremetyevo and London Heathrow, and British Airways (BA, London Heathrow) provides 17 weekly flights from Heathrow to Domodedovo. A recent arrival to the London-Moscow market is Wizz Air UK (W9, London Luton), which began operating a daily service between London Luton and Moscow Vnukovo in early October.