Baltia Air Lines Inc. (fka BLTA)

[Carsmax177]

Just as a compliment to the importance of the 8 hour route you are talking about, IMO, if you go to google and search for flights from JFK to St. Petersburg, they are all connecting flights that take at the least 12 hours. Baltia plans to do this route in 8 hours on no stops.

Link here: https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=JFK;t=LED;d=2015-07-25;r=2015-07-26;eo=e;q=jfk+to+st+petersburg+russia

Consider this as well: Right now there are about 61 flights among 13 airlines from JFK to St. Petersburg leaving JFK on July 25 and returning on July 26.

Some things they all have in common are there is at least one connecting flight (some two connecting flights) and the fastest flight takes 12 hours, with the shortest layover of 1 hour, 15 minutes. Obviously with 61 flights from JFK to St. Petersburg, there is quite a bit of traffic and market share to take cutting the travel time from 12 hrs to 8 hrs and no layover.

Again, IMO.