The leading carriers say they will comply with the criteria by the December deadline, but travel agents are worried over already negotiated contracts (442 words)

Published: 12/4/2001

In response to the new charter regulations issued by the GSGA, most of Russia's major airlines have said that they see few problems in fulfilling the agency's requirements. Ural Airlines has declared its readiness to comply with the criteria set and, by the 10th December deadline, will provide the GSGA with information on its charter programme plans, flight details (dates, number of flights, aircraft type), including those aircraft with TCAS, Orland radio stations, KLN-90B satellite navigation systems and RVSM, in order to meet the new regulations from both Turkey and China. The installation of the equipment has also allowed it to extend its charter programme with a new charter flight to Finland. Alexei Tolstik, Senior Manager of the charter group at Siberia Airlines (Sibir), has also confirmed that Sibir will have no difficulty in meeting the new regulations and attributes the problem to those carriers which speculatively gain contracts and then seek the capacity, as RusAvia did over the festive season 2000/2001. Tolstik believes this will be eliminated by the GSGA's new regulations. Tolstik added that the charter market itself is looking buoyant and that the supply of aircraft relative to demand had changed in the carrier's favour, with brisk demand for Sibir's service from tour companies. He considers that the improvement in demand for charter flights is because of the much healthier state of the Russian economy and a greater sense of consumer confidence. However, the Russian travel agencies are unhappy with the timing of the introduction of the GSGA's new regulations. According to Irina Tyurina of the Russian Association of Tourist Agencies, the introduction of the new measures in December, after the agencies have sold up to two-thirds of their New Year's packages, is simply too late as the agencies have already concluded contracts with the airlines. She points out that, if the airlines do not meet the GSGA's requirements, the agencies have only a limited period to resolve the situation and find other carriers, which do come up to scratch. This could become a pressing problem for some association members that have signed agreements with carriers either with partial shares in aircraft or just one or two aircraft. According to Gennady Pavlenko, the deputy head of the licensing department at the GSGA, the agency is simply trying to ensure that passengers have a trouble free holiday season, with no recurrence of the problems of 2000/2001 from carriers without adequate access to sufficient aircraft.

Article ID: 2943