Independence Lost

The Ukrainian airline took over the Junkers operation (see page 15) which, with the Zakavia franchise, gave it almost the whole of the southern part of the European U. S.S. R. as its traffic catch­ment area. Uzkrvozdukhput carried 3,050 passengers in 1928.

But its very success perhaps fell foul of government policy centered in Moscow. One of the items contained in the first Soviet Five-Year Plan was to create an all-Soviet airline which, in 1930, not only inherited the Russian Dobrolet, but engulfed Ukrvozdukhput as well.