On 3 December, Rossiya Airlines and the Amur Tiger Centre celebrated the third anniversary of the tiger plane at Vnukovo International Airport and launched the second Wild Cats Parade. Both projects aim to raise awareness of the preservation of rare animal species and promote environmental friendliness.

By now, the tiger plane, a Boeing 747 featuring the face of an Amur tiger painted on its nose, has landed at 22 airports and completed 1,525 flights, covering 6,280,000 km and spending 308 full days in the sky. Over this period, it has carried over 750,000 passengers.

On the plane’s anniversary, Rossiya Airlines, the Amur Tiger Centre and Vnukovo International Airport prepared many surprises for passengers, including themed pre-flight contests and quizzes. Passengers knowledgeable about the rare cats received gifts, and the passenger with the lucky boarding pass number 312 (to mark the date) got a special present from the Amur Tiger Centre.

Special tiger-themed headrest covers, boarding passes and leaflets about rare cats − in particular, the largest and lowest-numbered tiger subspecies – the Amur tiger – were prepared to mark the date. All the children onboard got extra attention and received souvenirs during the flight.

In addition, the second Wild Cats Parade opened at Vnukovo on 3 December. Three polygonal life-size sculptures of Amur tigers are now on display in the terminals. All of them have different designs: for example, there is a figure entitled Invincible Like a Phoenix in the check-in zone of Terminal A.

The first Wild Cats Parade, which included five tiger sculptures decorated with national patterns, was held in 2017 on Red Square.