Non-Moscow carriers cut from Bulgarian charter list (1,102 words)

Published: 6/5/2001

At the end of May, as part of the policy controlling charter carriers, the Ministry of Transport announced its list of authorised carriers for June. However, on 31st May, the ministry unexpectedly reduced the number of charter carriers authorised for flights to Bulgaria, from 10 to four. This followed the 17th May decision, allowing 10 airlines to fly to Burgas and Varna, namely: Siberia Airlines (Sibir), Krasnoyarsk Airlines (KrasAir),CMW (Caucauses Mineral Waters Airlines), Orenburg Airlines, Pulkovo Airlines, Irs Aero, East Line, Atlant-Soyuz, Continental Airlines and GTK Rossiya. The four licensed charter carriers now are: East Line, Atlant-Soyuz, Continental Airlines and GTK Rossiya. Those carriers not included on the list were taken aback by the decision, according to KrasAir's spokesperson, Svetlana Volodina, and have no idea why the ministry made the change. According to Volodina, all the carriers fulfilled the criteria set in April by the ministry for charter carriers that wanted to undertake charter flights from Moscow to the most popular vacation destinations. These were that the carriers should have no significant debt, that they could show high volumes on domestic and international routes and have a reliable fleet. Those airlines wanting to provide flights to Bulgaria submitted all the required documents to the ministry on 17th May and the ministry's licence department announced that 10 airlines would provide charter flights to Bulgaria. Accordingly, the airlines started to plan for flights. Volodina said that, on 29th May, all the airlines with authorisations for Bulgaria received telegrams from GSGA, instructing them to co-ordinate ongoing charter programmes with the scheduled carriers on the routes operated by Aeroflot and Aviaexpresscruise, by 31st May, when the next meeting of the licence commission was due to take place. Volodina claims that the telegram was not signed by Stanislav Ovcharenko, Head of the Licensing Department, but by another official from elsewhere in the civil aviation agency (GSGA), within the Ministry of Transport. However, the ”coordination” of flights with the scheduled carriers was discussed last year, with the reported conclusion that the scheduled carriers would have veto over any new entrants on the Bulgarian routes, although this appeared to have been lost in the blanket restrictions on charter carriers, announced in April. For the airlines, some of whom already had flights to Bulgaria scheduled, the request to coordinate with the scheduled carriers at such short notice was not only an unpleasant surprise, but impossible to comply with in the time available. CMW (Caucuses Mineral Waters Airlines), which had flights organised for 30th and 31st May, was unable to make meaningful contact with either Aeroflot or Aviaexpresscruise in such a short period of time and managed to gain an extension from the ministry until 11th June. The meeting of the licence commission on the 31st May added to the intrigue. According to Volodina, the meeting, which normally takes place with the airlines' representatives present, was closed to the airlines when Bulgaria was discussed and the representatives were asked to leave the room. Volodina said that this was the first time that this had occurred. She also noted that Stanislav Ovcharenko was not present and that the meeting was conducted by his deputy, Vitaly Pavlyuk. KrasAir claims that Pavlyuk cannot take decisions, without the specific instructions of the chairman. When the airlines' representatives were invited back into the room, they were informed of the decision to cut the number of carriers without any explanation as to why. The decision covers the complete summer season, in contradiction to earlier statements from Ovcharenko, that the carriers would be decided on a month-by-month basis. Pavlyuk may have not acted with the complete support of his superiors, as some sources report that Alexander Neradko, Head of GSGA, was not entirely happy with the process and could overturn the decision of the licence department, so reverting to the original plan. What is clear is that neither Aeroflot nor Aviaexpresscruise will be unhappy in the cutting of capacity on the route and there are the inevitable suggestions that the scheduled carriers somehow engineered the situation. While KrasAir would not acknowledge that this may have been the case, it did make the observation that the exclusion of so many carriers, particularly Pulkovo Airlines, Sibir and KrasAir could only benefit the scheduled carriers, particularly the smaller entity, Aviaexpresscruise, which only received the rights for the route in May 2000, to supplement Aeroflot, which was reported to be uninterested in increasing frequencies to Sofia. The cynic would observe that the carriers which have been approved for the flights are the large Moscow-based charter airlines, not directly in competition with Aeroflot or Aviaexpresscruise on scheduled routes elsewhere. It is also the case that they are all members of the Association of Airlines of Moscow Transport Centre, formed in February 2000, with objective of defending the hegemony of Moscow-based charters against incursions from the regional carriers, particularly from Siberia. Interestingly, Aeroflot, although not a member of the association, is reported to have “observer” status. KrasAir had originally planned to perform two flights to Burgas and one to Varna a week , but decided to reduce the frequency to one flight a week to both Burgas and Varna and received permission for these flights on 17th May. If it had gone ahead with the original plan of two flights to Burgas, the first flight was planned for the 29th May. Currently KrasAir's first flight is scheduled for the 7th June and, according to Volodina, Boris Abramovich, General Director of KrasAir, plans to meet Neradko on 5th June to ask him to reconsider the decision or, at least, explain the reasons behind it. KrasAir believes that Neradko will allow the flight and will reverse the decision of 31st May. In the event of the decision going against it, KrasAir has already informed travel agencies and passengers of the possible problem. One of the reasons for appointing Aviaexpresscruise as an official scheduled carrier on the route was the long record of charter problems on these routes and the percieved need to have additional reliable capacity in place. The current confusion being sown by the GSGA suggests possibility of a recurrence of the problems in 1999, when passengers were left stranded in Bulgaria by charterers. Volodina believes that the present situation could result in passengers being subjected to long delays in Moscow, waiting for flights and in both travel agencies and airlines incurring losses, owing to the GSGA's decision.

Article ID: 2571