Weekend hostilities prompt flight suspensions and further argument (647 words)

Published: 6/20/2001

After four months of relative peace in terms of the long running dispute between Russia and Georgia over the issuance of visas and its impact on national carrier, Airzena, hostilities have broken out again, with threats from both sides over the weekend of 15th June to suspend flights between the two countries. In the end, flights went ahead with both Airzena and Aeroflot flying between the capitals on 16th June, after complying with Georgia's requirement for documentation and the withdrawal of a GSGA ban. However, Domodedovo-based Aviaexpresscruise, the other Russian carrier on the Moscow-Tbilisi route under the bilateral agreement, remains at risk of being grounded, for failure to provide the requested documentation for each flight. According to Temur Tetradze, Head of the Georgian Air Traffic Department, because of the visa regime between Russia and Georgia, Airzena has lost $0.8m in the last five months on its route to Moscow alone. He attributes this to the fact that passengers flying with Russian airlines get their visas faster than those travelling with Airzena. He claims that, if the delays are not resolved on the Moscow-Tbilisi route, Georgia stands to lose $5m annually. Earlier this year, the losses on the route led the airline to suspend temporarily flights to Moscow. However, the estimated losses seem inconsistent: a figure of $800,000 was cited as a year to date loss, back in February. Georgian official say that efforts to resolve the situation have come to nought, as the representatives of the Russian airlines simply failed to appear at a planned meeting. The Georgian Aviation Administration, therefore, decided unilaterally to cut the number of weekly flights from Tbilisi-Moscow. It advised the Russian Ministry of Transport and the two carriers on the route - Aeroflot and Aviaexpresscruise - of its intention to cut flights from 11 to five for both sides and to reduce the traffic quotas from 750 to 560 passenger seats, with fares remaining the same as those stated in the intergovernmental agreement. According to Tetradze, while Aeroflot complied with the administration's requests, Aviaexpresscruise insisted on negotiating the restrictions. Aviaexpresscruise, according to Airzena, had already broken the terms of the intergovernmental agreement several times before, by reducing fares. Alexander Beznikin, General Director of Aviaexpresscruise, however, has claimed that Georgia is trying to get rid of rivals to Airzena and that Aviaexpresscruise is responsible for 65% of the traffic between the two countries, making flights to Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Batumi and Senaki. Beznikin added that a closure of the route could cost the Russian carriers $6m a month. So far, Russia's official response has been muted, after the tit for tat flight ban that stayed in place only a few hours, affecting only one Airzena flight on Saturday 16th June, following Alexander Neradko, Chairman of GSGA and Deputy Minister of Transport of Russia's receipt of notification, on 15th June, of Georgia's changes. Earlier, however, Pavel Rozhkov of the GSGA threatened to close Russian airspace to the Georgia for non-payment of $3.7m of ATC debts, to which Robert Oganesyan, General Director of Airzena, replied that the carrier would avoid flying over Russia's air space and route via Turkey. According to Jemal Kahiani, Deputy Head of the Georgian Aviation Administration, Georgian airlines that currently operate in Russia do not have debts for Russian ATC services, these having been accumulated by airlines that no longer exist. As a result, Russia did not have the right to prohibit the flights. This seems a somewhat academic point, as the state owned airline was created out of the indebted carriers. Kahiani added that Russian airlines owed money for Georgian ATC services, but this fact had not pushed Georgia to ban the Russian airlines' flights. Airzena plans to make its weekly flight Tbilisi-St Petersburg, operated with Sibir/VAL and Georgian Airlines will continue to fly from Tbilisi-Sochi.

Article ID: 2595