Red Wings was founded in 1999 as  VARZ-400. It aimed to be a discount airline.  It became Airlines 400 in 2001 and then adopted their current name Red Wings in 2007.

The airline owned ten Tupolev TI 204-100B, passenger jets capable of flying 210 passengers.

On December 29, 2012, one of their planes crashed in Moscow overshooting the runway and ending up on a highway. killing five crew. Faulty brakes were found to be the cause. This was the second overshoot for the carrier.

The Russian Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsiya  held a series of unscheduled operational and maintenance inspections of Red Wings from 10 to 16 January 2013 The Agency found  significant violations across the carrier. Flight operations, aircraft maintenance and pilot training were all discovered to have shortcomings.

Rosaviatsiya suspended the operator on February 4 because of safety issues. They noted that Red Wings lacked the financial resources to provide ongoing operations while maintaining a high level of safety. A somewhat scary assessment. The airline had already ceased flying and had announced there would be no attempt to revive the carrier.

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