Published: 10/29/1997

Anatoly Bondarev, a newly-appointed deputy director of FAS, said that this year the Service has withdrawn licences from 20 operators "for being unable to provide an adequate level of flight safety." He added, however, that in general flight safety in Russia "looks at the same level with the ICAO average". Commenting on Yakov Urinson's (Minister for Economics) remark that 600 airliners can fulfil the solvent demand for the whole of the Russian market, Bondarev said this statement is true provided all of these are physically-new modern types. Currently, Russian operators have 2,800 relatively large civil aircraft, he said, adding that "40% of these are in fact metal scrap". Operators do not have enough cash to bring these back in a flightworthy condition. Moreover, the operational economics of old types are inadequate to generate a profit in the current market conditions. "Transport is not in deficit any more", continued Bondarev, stating that the existing fleet fully fulfils the solvent demand for both cargo and passenger markets. Presenting his viewpoint, Amiran Kurtanidze, East Line Aviation general director, said the figure of 600 airliners can well be an over-estimate of the real needs. Quoting the average daily utilisation rate for Russian civil aviation as being five hours per aircraft, he claimed that 40 new airliners from Airbus can effectively fulfil the current solvent demand on the whole of Moscow-Far East market. According to Kurtanidze, the future of civil aviation in Russia will heavily depend on fuel prices. Since 1994 the average price for one tonne of aviation kerosene in Moscow has increased from $100 to $250, he said. In some remote places like Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky the price has reached $500. "We keep in business thanks to low prices on indigenous aircraft", confessed Kurtanidze.(IN1097.1) (VK)

Article ID: 54