Heavenly office

The Ministry of Transport wants to be responsible for everything in aviation

Transport Minister Igor Levitin spoke in favor of changing the system of state aviation management bodies that emerged as a result of the administrative reform of 2004. Speaking yesterday at an expanded board of his department, Mr. Levitin proposed expanding the powers of specialized agencies and services subordinate to the Ministry of Transport, while simultaneously reducing the scope of responsibility of the Federal Air Navigation Service (FANS), which is independent of it. At the same time, the minister showed sharp dissatisfaction with the activities of the aviation authorities subordinate to him. He criticized the heads of the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviation) and the Federal Service for Supervision of Transport (Rostransnadzor), which confirmed the circulating rumors about the imminent resignation of both.

The expanded board of the Ministry of Transport opened yesterday with the participation of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov, as well as the head of the Ministry of Finance Alexei Kudrin. Mr. Ivanov, for whom civil aviation has been a priority since early September when he headed the government's aviation safety commission, also spoke of impending changes in the industry's leadership structure. He said in his speech that the Russian government is preparing proposals to create an Aviation Board. “Its main task should be to coordinate the activities of federal executive authorities on the functioning of the aviation industry and aviation,” said the Deputy Prime Minister.

But Minister Levitin focused on the need to reform structures that lie not above, but below his own position in the hierarchical pyramid of the executive branch. “Our proposals are related to changing the functions of services, agencies and the Ministry of Transport,” he said yesterday. The minister emphasized that he wants to carry out this redistribution of powers as quickly as possible and with as little formality as possible. “We don’t need a second administrative reform,” he said. “This can be done by government decree.”

The essence of the desired changes, according to the minister, is to expand the functions of Rosaviatsia. In particular, he said that this agency could concentrate in its hands the certification of various technical and educational aviation structures, as well as develop departmental acts regulating the activities of air transport. But Mr. Levitin called the functions of FANS, independent of the Ministry of Transport, “redundant.” Some of these functions, according to him, should be transferred to the ministry, and determination of the level of payment for air navigation services should be entrusted to the Federal Tariff Service. “The service cannot approve tariffs for itself,” said Mr. Levitin, answering a question from Vremya Novostey.

The minister emphasized that now, in practical terms, there is no question of creating a single civil aviation management body like the line ministry that existed in the USSR. Nevertheless, Mr. Levitin did not rule out that such an authority will appear in the future under one indispensable condition: if an administrative center with similar functions is also created in the Russian aviation industry.

The work of Russian aviators in 2006 was marred by several disasters that claimed the lives of more than 300 people. “The events of 2006 showed the presence of crisis phenomena in Russian civil aviation. Serious aviation accidents with numerous casualties occurred in conditions when today’s flight hours in aviation are almost three times less than in 1991,” Mr. Levitin assessed current moment. It is not surprising in this regard that the current leadership of Rosaviation and Rostransnadzor did not deserve the minister’s praise. “I believe that we need to reconsider our personnel policy and refuse the services of those who have grabbed the helm and are not able to straighten the flight path in the required direction. The time to make such decisions is limited,” the minister said about them and added: “These structures are not were able to become a support and support for airline enterprises, and sometimes allowed themselves not to regulate activities in the air transportation market from the position of the state, but tried to participate in unfair competition and redistribution of the market."

Somewhat later, however, he emphasized that the goal of the board was not personal dismissals, but an analysis of industry problems. Nevertheless, the minister’s words only confirmed rumors about the very likely resignation of the head of Rosaviatsia, Alexander Yurchik, and the head of Rostransnadzor, Valery Saleev, in the coming weeks.

Mikhail KUKUSHKIN