On the 31st of October 2000 Sergey Frank, the Russian Minister of Transport,
met with the heads of the State Civil Aviation Service (SCAS) formerly known
as the FSVT, and related ministries to discuss the development of the major
Moscow airports (Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, Vnukovo) and the consolidation of
state airport assets.
The programme, which involves the creation of a unified administration for
the airports has been under discussion for some time, excluded the smallest
of Moscow's airports Bykovo on the basis that its share of the overall traffic
was to small for inclusion. The new unified body was discussed by Frank on the
28th October 2000 with Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and was approved in principle,
but with certain alterations to the plan, that were discussed by the agencies
on the 31st October.
According to Moscow newspaper Kommersant, reporting a source in the SCAS, the
plan appears to be similar to that proposed at an earlier stage by the FSVT,
with the creation of an interim state owned holding company within SCAS to control
the airports, managed by airport representatives and related ministries, which
will lease federal property to the airports.
The second stage of the development will be the creation of a Closed Joint
Stock Company Moscow Airports, jointly managed by the state representatives
and airports. The ownership according to preliminary reports, suggests that
the ownership will be split between the airports with the state retaining 10%.
The main objective of the exercise being to improve the ability of the airports
to attract funding to the development of the city's overall airport infrastructure.
The government is reluctant to discuss the plans in detail on the grounds
that they are currently under discussion. The developments do however appear
to have sidelined East Line Group, the controlling shareholders of Domodedovo
Airport and earlier rumoured to be the major players in the consolidation of
the airports. Their comments when asked about recent developments were reported
to be pessimistic. The latter comment may be justified in that the airports
have been battling to increase their share of Moscow's traffic of late particularly
Domodedovo and Vnukovo, and greater cooperation may prove to be a difficult
task particularly when involving the aggressive Domodedovo management. It is
unclear whether the recently reported loss of control of the federally owned
runways at Vnukovo Airport to the state carrier Rossiya is affected by the plan.
There is the suggestion that the move reported ten days ago, may have been part
of an orchestrated move to prepare the ground for announcements in the last
few days.
