Boeing 747-400 | 2003-2005-2008

(TOP)
Airline - Moscavia
Aircraft - Boeing 747-400 | EI-PRD
Delivered to Singaporean Overseas Pacific Air Service, 1992
Sold to AerCap, 2003
Leased to Moscavia, 2003
Livery - Standard 1994
Country - Russia

(MIDDLE)
Airline - Moscavia
Aircraft - Boeing 747-400 | VQ-BKA
Delivered to Françair, 1990
Sold to Moscavia, 2005
Livery - Standard 1994
Country - Russia

(BOTTOM)
Airline - Moscavia
Aircraft - Boeing 747-400 | EI-EUM
Delivered to Japan Airways, 1989
Stored at Victorville, 2002
Returned to Service, 2005
Stored at Victorville, 2007
Sold to Boeing Capital Corporation, 2008
Sold to PAO VneshTorgBank, 2008
Leased to Moscavia, 2008
Stored at Moscow Vnukovo International Airport, 2020
Livery - TEZ Tour 2008
Country - Russia

In 2003, Moscavia took delivery of five ex-SOPAS 747-400s, leased from AerCap. All five still had the Singaporean flag carrier's full interiors fitted. These included fifteen lie-flat First Class seats in the nose, which even featured buddy-dining settees, 64 electrically-operated angle-flat Business Class seats spread between the upper and lower decks, and 358 Economy Class seats. These 747s were by far the most luxurious aircraft in the airline's fleet, and much larger than its 767s, so they were immediately placed into service on routes to Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC, London, Paris, Beijing, and Hong Kong. In fact, these five ex-SOPAS 747s were actually the largest and most luxurious aircraft operated by any Russian carrier, vastly superior to anything Russian International Airlines had to offer. Oleg Baghdassarian, Moscavia's founder, was finally on the verge of turning his dream of his company being the best airline in the country into a reality.

Encouraged by the success of the 747s leased in 2003, the airline's management continued the fleet expansion program, acquiring seven more 747-400s in 2005. These all came from Aérocontinentale, and were bought outright by the airline, rather than being leased. These were also passed on by their previous owner with interiors left in place, and featured eleven First Class seats (while there were fewer than on the ex-SOPAS aircraft, they were significantly wider and converted into even larger beds), 69 Business recliners, and 368 seats in Economy. The more than doubling of the 747 fleet allowed 747 service to be put in place on a few more existing routes - such as Tokyo, Seoul, and Dubai - as well as the addition of new routes altogether. Thus, in 2005 Moscavia began flying to San Francisco, Vancouver, Montreal, New Delhi, etcetera. This meant that there was a large expansion of premium routes served by the airline at the same time as it was also expanding its leisure operations in the same year through the lease of densely-configured 767s from Atlantic Charter, as described previously.

The overseas tourism boom of the 2000s soon, however, demanded even more capacity than the 767s could provide, so in 2008 Moscavia took delivery of seven more 747-400s, this time ex-Japan Airways planes leased through PAO VneshTorgBank. These had their interiors removed when they were retired by Japan Airways, which was just as well, because Moscavia planned on refitting them anyway. The seven aircraft were configured with an Economy-only lower deck, fitted with the maximum allowable 550 seats. The upper deck had 44 Business Class recliners. With a mind-boggling capacity of almost 600 seats, these 747s firmly cemented Moscavia as the leader of Russia's leisure charter market, able to operate scheduled or ad-hoc charter service to basically anywhere on the planet (except Australia, which would require a fuel stop). With enough capacity in its leisure fleet to carry five and a half thousand passengers per day, the airline now had the power to make or break any tour operator or package holiday provider it chose to do business with - and it chose to ally itself particularly closely with TEZ Tour, into the Russian division of which Baghdassarian had heavily invested, in the names of both of his sons. It was also TEZ Tour's logo that the airline chose to display on one of the leisure-configured 747s, EI-EUM, using it as a flying billboard. Realizing that just one of its 594-seat 747s could fill an entire all-inclusive resort somewhere in Southeast Asia or the Caribbean, Moscavia began to cut tour operators out of some deals, working directly with hotels in all corners of the globe to sell package holidays under its own name. After 2008, it became somewhat of a myth surrounding Moscavia that you had to be especially unlucky to be booked on a flight due to be operated by one of its luxurious 747-400s with First Class, only for your plane to have technical issues and be swapped out for one of the super-dense monster-747s!