Airline competition largely driven by distance travelled rather than quality of service

Published: 4/25/2000

The awards to airlines under the Krylya Rossii-99 (Wings of Russia-99) competition have created debate since the first contest place in 1998 and it appears that the most recent awards of 28th March were no exception. The “competition" is judged by a panel made up of air transport professionals unconnected with the airlines and journalists, and is sponsored by the Association of Air Transport, consulting company InfoMOST and the Air Transport Observer Magazine The contest this year, which covered 38 airlines, placed Pulkovo as the country"s leading domestic airline among the large airlines flying more than 1 bn passenger route kilometre (PRK) a year , with Aeroflot gaining a runner up position along with Domodedovo Airlines after winning last year. The leading domestic airline flying between 0.5-1bn PRK was Kavminvodoyavia with runners-up Ural and Tyumenaviatrans, Pulkovo having won this segment last year. In the international catergory Aeroflot was the winner for the second year in a row and the runners-up were Pulkovo and Moscow charter carrier AJT. For the cargo category Volga Dnepr was the winner for a second year with Polyot and East Line sharing the runner-up rostrum. The contest also has some other interesting categories among the smaller airlines with titles such as: Ø Survival among the sharks – won by Avial a 54-employee carrier operating out of Moscow providing charter flights with its fleet of An-12s and Il-76. Ø Taking off – some thing may have been lost in the translation, but apparently it refers to the most improved airline and this year the winner was Vnukovo based Aviaexpresscruise, which improved its PRK by almost 62% in 1999 to 288m passenger km. Ø For professional style-struggling Kalingradavia Ø Stability and reliability- Atran a cargo carrier operating out of Domodedovo Airport and one of the few not impacted by the shuttle traffic crisis since 1998 and Chelyabinsk Airlines Ø For leaving the dive – Sakhaavia, again more to do with the condition of the business than flying style Ø For good relations with the media- East Line The merit of the contest has been called into question by some commentators who have argued that deciding simply on the basis of PRK is perhaps not the best basis of making awards for what is primarily a passenger driven business. The judging process includes no assessment of issues such as punctuality and on board service or the passengers views of them. The reason for not including the views of passengers is ascribed by the organisers to a lack of funds to poll travellers. The contest does however, revealed some interesting data about the market overall revealing that of the 21.5m passengers carried, 1m individuals flew 8-12 times and a further 2.4m flew 4-6 times in the year. The winners of the contest are therefore inclined to be the major carriers rather than the best, a fact which pleases the major carriers who put great store by the contest, in fact one rumour stated that East Line had even invested unsuccessfully in a PR campaign to attempt to dislodge Volga Dnepr from the number one slot for 1999.

Article ID: 1568