In the year that is coming to an end, the Russian aviation industry has received answers to questions that even a year ago none of the experts would have dared to even hypothetically ask.
Perhaps the most important of these questions is:
What will happen to the industry if the supply of civil aircraft and spare parts from Europe and the USA is banned?
What if we force foreign lessors to terminate all contracts with Russian airlines, ban aircraft maintenance and insurance?
What happens if the airspace becomes largely closed?
“The main result of 2022 is that the Russian aviation industry has shown resilience in the face of unprecedented sanctions, and what these sanctions were aimed at did not happen,” says Oleg Panteleev, CEO of AviaPort.
But for the citizens of Russia, the changes have become very important; air routes and the usual booking systems have changed. Indeed, in a number of countries of the world the sky was closed, as the European Union, the United States of America, Canada and a number of other countries closed their airspace to Russian aircraft, and Russia reacted in a similar way, and this also closed its airspace to airlines from unfriendly countries.
Under such conditions, passengers have no choice but to fasten their seat belts and wait for the plane to take off from the earthquake zone.
The volume of air travel in Russia has decreased over the past year, but not seriously, and if Russian airlines carried more than 111 million passengers in 2021, they will reach almost 100 million passengers by the end of this year, which is the goal that was elected by President Vladimir Putin.
The Ministry of Transport of Russia at the end of November last year admitted that this year alone, airlines will carry from 94 to 96 million passengers, and the main reason for this decline is the restriction of domestic flights over neighboring regions of Ukraine, where 11 Russian airports are still closed: Belgorod, Bryansk , Voronezh and Gelendzhik, and Krasnodar, and Kursk, and Lipetsk, and Rostov-on-Don, and Simferopol, and Elista.
Expert Panteleev believes that the restriction of international traffic did not have a significant impact on its volume, since it was compensated by the redistribution of aircraft to available destinations. At the same time, the number of foreign destinations decreased by about 5 times over the year.
According to the Federal Air Transport Agency, as of mid-December, there were direct flights from Russia to 22 countries: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Egypt, Israel, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba, Laos, Maldives, United Arab Emirates, Seychelles, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Turkey. A year ago, there were more than 100 such destinations.
The country has helped maintain the peak of the aviation industry, with 100 billion rubles ($1.46 billion) in subsidies for flights within Russia and another 19.54 billion rubles ($285 million) in refunds of 2.9 billion worth of canceled tickets this year. RUB 42 million (US$42 million) for air cargo carriers, RUB 15 billion (US$219 million) to support the air traffic and traffic control system, and RUB 7.5 billion (US$109 million) for temporarily closed airports in southern and central Russia .
In addition, more than 27 billion rubles ($394 million) were allocated to traditional programs to support regional transportation, transportation of the most vulnerable social groups of citizens and support for the Far East region.
From what the federal department told the Russian Novosti agency, it can already be concluded that state support measures have shown their effectiveness and have made it possible to reduce the negative consequences of Western sanctions against the Russian aviation industry. According to the agency, state support made it possible to avoid a significant reduction in air travel on domestic airlines, to avoid rising prices for air tickets, and to avoid mass layoffs of aviation workers. The measures taken also ensured the safety of the movement of passengers and the maintenance of the required level of flight safety.
But the main conclusion that the aviation industry had to draw at the end of the year was that the country was in dire need of its aircraft, its software and all its services. It will go up in price every year. In the “second half of the current decade,” the main source of capacity renewal will be the supply of new domestic aircraft,” says Panteleev.
Among the significant achievements, the Russian expert noted that the forced transition to local booking systems that companies implemented last year was a big challenge, according to him: “It is difficult to find a case for switching from a new booking system in such a short time and without long failures. became a huge challenge for our IT system developers and airlines, and they overcame it.”
Russian companies are now engaged in the maintenance and repair of foreign aircraft, Panteleev continues: “Today we see that for most types of foreign-made aircraft, Russian service departments have permission from the Russian aviation authorities for maintenance and repair, and competence has been confirmed in the repair of some components of foreign aircraft “.
He said: “Of course, there are open issues with the repair of engines and a number of electronic components, but we are here and, as we see, we are working on establishing cooperation with third countries that do not support sanctions”, The role of parallel imports, since airlines have, according to him According to him, a sufficient amount. From consumables and spare parts, we can conclude that the Russian aviation industry is effectively coping with this task.
The expert positively assesses the overall results of the year for the Russian aviation industry and expects that the financial results will be generally positive, stating: “Accordingly, there are no financial loopholes in airlines and mass bankruptcies following the results of work this year. .”
Panteleev’s forecast for airfare prices looks good: “The cost of air travel in 2023 will not show significant growth if current conditions remain stable and state support continues, while new opportunities for passenger flights from Russia to other international destinations may appear,” he said. . — I am sure that negotiations between the aviation authorities of Russia and other countries in 2023 will yield important results and lead to the opening of flights to new destinations.
Western countries have already realized that it is too expensive to fly around Russia and are considering resuming flights in their airspace, with IATA CEO William Walsh warning that European airlines will lose out to the Chinese due to restrictions.
Source: News