Ikar (Pegas Fly)

Is Ikar safe?

Ikar, the airline many Russian holidaymakers still know as Pegas Fly, scores 56. Its accident record is clean on paper: no fatal crash and no written-off aircraft in any database we checked. The rest of the picture is weaker. The EU lists it as unsafe, its Boeing 737s, 777s and Embraer 190s have had no factory support since 2022, and Rosaviatsia grounded two of its jets in 2019 after finding 168 unapproved changes to their design. Russian incident data has also become thin since 2021, so the clean record is partly a gap in what outsiders can see.

Who runs Ikar

The certificate holder is LLC "Aircompany Ikar", based in Kazan. For years it flew charters under the Pegas Fly brand for Pegas Touristik, one of Russia's largest tour operators; today it sells tickets as Ikar, and pegasfly.ru forwards to ikar.aero. The company says it runs about 150 flights a week to more than 60 destinations and carries about 22,000 passengers a week, many of them on routes between Russian regions that skip Moscow.

Ikar sits in the same group as Nordwind. A June 2023 US Commerce Department order says the founder of Pegas Touristik also controls Nordwind and Pegas Fly, and Ikar's site says its aircraft are maintained by Nordwind Technic. Ikar has also flown for Nordwind: in December 2021 an Ikar 737-800 operating a Nordwind flight to Krasnodar lost cabin pressure at 32,000 feet and returned to Sheremetyevo. Under our rules that event counts on Ikar, whose crew and certificate flew it.

The EU ban and the US order

Ikar is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary as AOC 36, one of 22 Russian airlines named on the 9 June 2026 list. The EU listed them in 2022 after Rosaviatsia let airlines keep flying foreign-owned aircraft without valid certificates of airworthiness. ICAO also flagged a Significant Safety Concern about Russia's airworthiness oversight in June 2022, and Russia was still disputing it in July 2025.

Ikar is an IATA member, which normally requires an IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit, but the IOSA entry on its own site describes Nordwind's audit and says the certificate ran until February 2021. When we searched IATA's IOSA registry on 28 October 2026, under Ikar, Pegas and KAR, Ikar was not there (the only match for "Pegas" was Turkey's Pegasus Airlines). So we score oversight 20, our level for Russian airlines that are on the EU list without IOSA.

The US has not placed Ikar itself under a denial order. The tour operator Pegas Touristik is named in the order against Nordwind, which BIS renewed in June 2023, partly for chartering a Turkish airline to fly US-built jets into Russia.

The 2019 Rosaviatsia check

In June 2019 Rosaviatsia ran an unscheduled inspection of Ikar's aircraft. According to RBC, as reported by TourDom, it found 168 changes to the aircraft's type design that no authority had approved, gave the airline three months to fix them, and barred two aircraft from flying meanwhile. The row was part of a wider dispute over Bermuda-registered jets whose modifications Rosaviatsia now wanted certified in Russia; Nordwind had two jets grounded at the same time. It is the only enforcement action against Ikar we found, and it falls inside our 10-year window, so it lowers the incidents score.

Runway events

• Simferopol, 17 June 2021. A 767-300 from Moscow landed on a wet runway in rain and a gusty wind and veered right, stopping about 2,300 metres down the runway with its nose and right main gear off the pavement. No one was hurt.
• Yekaterinburg, 9 June 2016. A Pegas Fly 737-800 from Monastir with 191 people on board ran past the runway end lights on landing but stayed on the paved safety area. It is older than our 10-year window, so we describe it but do not count it.

AeroInside logs nothing for Ikar after December 2021. That reflects how little Russian occurrence data now reaches outside sources, not a sudden improvement.

Planes without a manufacturer behind them

Ikar's site lists three types: the Boeing 737-900ER, the Boeing 777-200ER for long holiday flights, and the Embraer 190. All three lost manufacturer support for Russian operators in 2022. The 737s and 777s need US parts, which have required a US licence, reviewed under a policy of denial, since 2022. We take 25 points off what this mix would normally earn and score the fleet 45, the same as Nordwind. See our Boeing 777 page for the type's own record.

Before you book

The main practical risk on Ikar is disruption, not a known pattern of serious events. EASA's bulletin for Russian airspace west of 60° East, Kazan included, warns that drone attacks can close airports at short notice; between 18 September and 24 October 2026 Ikar cancelled its flights to Sochi from 16 Russian cities and flew them to Sukhum in Abkhazia instead, with no ground transfer between the two. If you book a holiday package, check which airport you will really land at and how you get back if a flight is moved.

How we scored it

The accident record (84) is the strongest factor: no crash or hull lossHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary on record, held back from the top band because outside data after 2021 is thin. Oversight (20) reflects the EU listing, Rosaviatsia's open ICAO concern and no IOSA registrationIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary. The fleet and incidents (both 45) reflect aircraft without factory support and the 2019 grounding over unapproved modifications. For the sister airline's record, see Nordwind; for another charter airline under the same regulator, see Azur Air.