ST. PETERSBURG -- Pulkovo Airlines, the St. Petersburg division of Aeroflot, has blocked plans by Transaero to use its Boeing aircraft to fly the Moscow-St. Petersburg route, according to Vladislav Ilinykh, Transaero's general manager in Russia's second city.


Transaero, a Moscow-based private airline which has an office in St. Petersburg, has been battling to break Pulkovo's monopoly on the route for two years.


"Petersburg has been No. 1 on the list of Transaero's destinations, but we cannot get a license to fly to Pulkovo Airport," Ilinykh said Tuesday.


"We wanted to reach a gentlemen's agreement with Pulkovo," said Ilinykh.


"We proposed a handling agreement which would mean that Pulkovo would service our passengers on the ground, but they refused to sign the contract because they are afraid that Transaero will steal their passengers."


The legacy of the Soviet system means that Pulkovo currently both controls the airport and operates as an airline company.


The airline is scheduled to be privatized.


The Moscow-St. Petersburg link has been a life-saver for Pulkovo. With five flights a day it is the highest-volume and most profitable route on its schedule, according to Ilinykh.


Recently the airline has improved service on the route, introducing a new comfort class.


For a higher price, passengers get, among other things, more spacious seating arrangements, a separate check-in facility, and priority baggage handling.


The airline has also announced that it is planning to put into operation five refurbished Tupolev-154 aircraft in March.


Pulkovo officials could not be reached for comment, but Nikolai Kolesov, deputy general director of Pulkovo, said in an interview with the business newspaper Delevoi Peterburg that if Transaero gets the go-ahead to fly the route, Pulkovo could be forced to dismiss 200 pilots.


But Ilinykh, who previously worked as a manager at Aeroflot, said: "Pulkovo behaves like a typical monopolist. They say that it is out of the question that Transaero should fly the route just because it has historically been served by them."


Transaero currently flies from Moscow to 13 destinations in the former Soviet Union and has been licensed to fly to the United States, Germany, France, Britain and Taiwan.


Pulkovo's refusal may rebound on it. The Air Transport Department in Moscow has announced that Pulkovo will not be granted new routes until the issue with Transaero is resolved.