The first flight from London to Moscow and from Moscow to London took place in May 1959

The first flight from London to Moscow and from Moscow to London took place in May 1959. The British side assigned a Vickers 806 Viscount, G-AOYS, to the service, the Soviet side a Tu-104A of Aeroflot. The route included a stopover in Copenhagen, and the journey time with the halt in Denmark was 6 hours 50 minutes to Moscow and 7 hours 20 minutes to London. Initially the flights ran twice a week. From 1960 the British changed their aircraft and were able to cover the whole distance without a stop in 3.5 hours, while the Soviet non-stop flights would appear only when the Il-62 was put on the route in 1969. From 1967 British European Airways flew to Moscow and back on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and Aeroflot on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. In 1968 the Leningrad-London service began, and in 1970 the transit trans-Siberian link London-Moscow-Tokyo, which was dubbed Russiaway