Get on flights

Competition in the charter market is already reminiscent of a real war. But airfares are only going up.

They say that this scheme was invented by Boris Berezovsky. The bottom line is to sell tickets in bulk to the most popular destinations at a huge discount - on the verge of cost or even cheaper. Last year, during the season, Aeroflot sold wholesale tickets to Cuba for €560 to the so-called ticket consolidator. And he resold them to a tour operator for €740. The consolidator made a significant profit, but guaranteed the airline the sale of all tickets on flights. The trick is that those destinations where guarantees were not needed were sold in bulk - Dubai, Hurghada, etc. The volume of such wholesale sales was about $100 million per year, and the income of ticket consolidators was estimated at about $20 million.

The cost of airfare is about half the price of the tour. This year, due to changes in the policy of the largest airlines, the tourism market is waiting for grandiose structural changes. For example, how the class will disappear those same ticket consolidators - since February, Aeroflot has been selling tickets in bulk directly to tour operators. This year, such sales will account for 60% of the wholesale market, next year - 100%. However, the disappearance of the seemingly unnecessary intermediary did not lead to lower prices. Now tour operators pay €800 for a seat in Havana, which is €60 more than a year ago. This is logical: the repartition of the tourist market is started in order to plug holes in Aeroflot's balance sheet.

Passengers, as usual, is the tenth question. On Monday, the planes of the Red Wings airline, banker Alexander Lebedev, could not fly to Egypt and from it - Rosaviatsia did not give consent to the flights. The airline allegedly was late with the application for the approval of the departure. Hundreds of tourists hung at airports.

Lebedev said that people close to the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency, Alexander Neradko, demanded that he become one of the sponsors of the Samara football club Krylya Sovetov, which was rescued by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin. When Lebedev refused, he was "cut off" from Egypt for a day. Another aviator, who asked to remain anonymous, says that Lebedev is not the first, and points to Aeroflot, which could not refuse and became a sponsor of football players from CSKA. "Probably they love football," a Newsweek interlocutor quipped.

However, with the Red Wings a slightly more complicated story. Lebedev himself, in an interview with Newsweek, connected the incident with negotiations on the sale of a blocking stake in Aeroflot by the banker to the airline itself. He agreed with the prime minister on some conditions, but now he is being offered tougher ones and is being put under pressure, limiting his company's charter flights.

The opportunity to put pressure on carriers appeared back in 2008, when the Ministry of Transport issued an order obliging charter companies to coordinate their flights with the airlines assigned to these destinations - so as not to harm their business. For two years no one remembered the order, but in March a real charter war began between Aeroflot and Transaero. Transaero claims that Aeroflot interferes with the approval of the company's charter flights to Larnaca, Cyprus.

“Four years flew normally. And then they suddenly demanded from us to negotiate these flights with the Federal Air Transport Agency, - complains the representative of Transaero, Sergey Bykhal. - We applied there and on March 29 received permission to fly to Larnaca four times a week. This is two times less than our volume of traffic in this direction!” Aeroflot says that they have nothing to do with it and that “the decision is made by the Federal Air Transport Agency. But Transaero is still preparing a symmetrical response. “Let them then coordinate flights to the Maldives, Heraklion and the Dominican Republic with us as the designated carrier,” Byhal threatens.

Observers link this conflict to a comprehensive change in Aeroflot's policy: the company is trying to increase its revenues. In January, the air carrier introduced a new agent remuneration mechanism. Previously, Aeroflot paid €1 euro for the sale of its ticket. But there was also a system of bonuses for fulfilling and overfulfilling the plan - drummers could receive up to 12–13% of sales. “Some companies have exceeded the plan by several times from quarter to quarter,” says a source close to the Ministry of Transport to Newsweek. Market participants suspected that such premiums were paid for a reason, and estimated potential kickbacks at $30 million a year. The source considers this figure too high.

Be that as it may, from this year Aeroflot has a "smooth" commission - all agents receive 7% for the sale of economy class tickets and 9% for business class. In February, we recall, direct wholesale sales to tour operators began. And at the end of March, the commercial director of Aeroflot, Sergei Obryvalin, who was in charge of the sales system, was dismissed.

His successor Andrei Kalmykov is known on the market as the founder of the Sunrise travel company, a major operator (with a turnover of about $300 million a year) working with Turkey and Austria. Kalmykov told Newsweek that he has no stake in the company since the fall of 2008. He went out of business after he was appointed to the position of assistant secretary of transport. Now sources in the market claim that it was Kalmykov who proposed to Aeroflot to oust Transaero from profitable charter destinations.

Former tour operator Kalmykov knows how profitable charter flights are for airlines. Operators buy all the seats on board in advance: there are no risks, and occupancy is at 100%. The problem is that Aeroflot, being the largest regular carrier, is not even in the top three in the tourist transportation market, yielding to Transaero, Orenburg Airlines and VIM-Avia. Only 2% of Aeroflot's traffic is oriented towards mass tourism.

“Tour operators are running much cheaper,” explains the situation with charter flights, the former director of one of the large companies. But so far, Aeroflot cannot compete on price. There are too many expenses in the cost of transportation of the largest Russian airline.

For example, the new terminal "D", which the airline has built in Sheremetyevo. His estimate for the period of construction has tripled, which in itself affected the prospects for payback. According to a source at the airport, the terminal has not yet been completed. Due to the fact that the money has run out, the central refueling system has not been introduced, and in terminal "D" planes are refueled not from underground, but from a refueling vehicle. This reduces the throughput of the terminal and puts its payback into question.

In addition, JSC "Terminal" (owner of "D") for its own money built a site adjacent to the arms of the terminal. By law, such an apron can only be the property of the state. It can be sold to the federal government, but for this it is necessary to achieve the corresponding line in the budget, which is unrealistic before 2012.

In addition, the source says, when the apron was being built, its height was 30 cm lower than in the entire air hub - allegedly due to the fact that the terminal project was not coordinated with the airport's development plans. As a result, it had to be raised, which increased the cost from $80 million to $120 million. Newsweek's interlocutor claims that if the platform is sold to the state, its cost estimate will be lower than the actual costs incurred, and the shareholders - Aeroflot, VTB and VEB - will record losses.

There are also problems with other subsidiaries of Aeroflot. “A bottle of beer costs 50 rubles, but we pretend that I am selling it to you for a thousand,” one of the former top managers of a large airline explains the mechanism for hiding losses. “Everyone understands that I will never receive this money from you, but on paper I have a profit of 950 rubles, which, for example, can cover real losses.” According to this scheme, parent companies can hide losses in their subsidiaries, and those in their granddaughters, etc. But at some point, the volume of additions turns out to be so large that you can’t hide it anymore, and the company’s business crumbles like a house of cards.

The market is confident that the bankruptcy of Aeroflot-Cargo, the country's third-largest cargo carrier, followed just such a scenario. And now, according to various estimates by Newsweek, Aeroflot will have to write off about 5 billion rubles. “This is the biggest stone on the neck of Aeroflot, and almost all of its subsidiaries are unprofitable, except for Novotel. In February, the Prosecutor General's Office became interested in the work of Aeroflot, ”says an informed source to Newsweek.

In such a situation, it is difficult for Aeroflot to dump. The largest airline is increasing its presence in the tourist market, and transportation prices are not decreasing. According to tour operators, the cost of charters to Turkey, Egypt has already slightly exceeded the prices of 2009, and by the season prices will increase by another 10%. Since Aeroflot cannot compete on price, it will do it at the expense of administrative resources, market participants are sure.