Rosaviatsia adjusts the rules of the game for carriers in the Volga Federal District

Rosaviatsia is introducing a mechanism for assessing the performance of airlines participating in the program for subsidizing interregional transportation in the Volga Federal District. It is assumed that the new coefficient, which allows us to estimate the fullness of a flight, will force airlines to more actively “roll out” routes. Since the launch of the program, on April 1, 2013, passenger traffic in the district has already doubled - to 70 thousand people, four out of 37 flights have reached self-sufficiency. Air carriers approve of the initiative and see it as an attempt to optimize the route network.

From 2014, Rosaviatsia will take over the assessment of the occupancy of interregional flights in the Volga Federal District
Photo: Roman Yarovitsyn, Kommersant

The draft government decree on the implementation of interregional air transportation in the Volga Federal District in 2014 introduces a new mechanism for assessing the performance of air carriers. The Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Volga Federal District, Mikhail Babich, who initiated the program, announced this yesterday at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Starting from the new year, the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviation) will take into account the occupancy of aircraft. As the office of the plenipotentiary representative in the Volga Federal District explained to Kommersant, the efficiency coefficient for air carriers is being introduced in order to encourage them to more actively promote the regional civil aviation development program. “As practice has shown, there are routes that fill well and become self-sustaining. And there are routes that are regularly not loaded, that is, they remain unprofitable. The carrier receives government assistance in the form of subsidies for them, but does not take any action to roll out the route,” says Kommersant’s interlocutor. According to the new rules, starting from 2014, the Federal Air Transport Agency will have the right, after a certain period, to withdraw the route from the carrier and transfer it to another company participating in the program on the terms of a general contractor or subcontractor.

Let us remind you that in the Volga Federal District, the air transportation subsidy program was launched first in the country - on April 1, 2013. At first, companies received subsidies for each passenger transported, that is, if the route was poorly loaded, the carriers operated at a loss. Later, the conditions were changed - subsidies on most routes began to be transferred for each flight performed, regardless of the number of passengers. The following airlines participate in the program: Tatarstan, chosen as the general contractor, Orenburg Airlines, Utair and Avia Management Group. Of the 37 operating routes, four (Kazan - Ufa, Kazan - Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgrod - Samara, Samara - Ufa), which accounted for about 40% of passenger traffic, have reached self-sufficiency and will be excluded from the subsidy program in 2014. “As of November 1, 70 thousand passengers have already been transported under this program. At the same time, I would like to note that over the entire last year, only about 40 thousand passengers were transported in the Volga Federal District,” Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov reported to the Prime Minister yesterday, noting that the program in the Volga Federal District will be extended until 2016 and “such an experience was It would be highly desirable to replicate it to all federal districts.” “By the end of the year, we assume that this figure will be 90 thousand passengers, that is, we will exceed the volume of the entire 2012 by more than 2.5 times. If in April-May there were 8 thousand passengers flying per month, then in October there were already 12, and, accordingly, there is an upward trend,” added Mikhail Babich. The competition for transportation across the territory of the Volga Federal District in 2014 is planned to be held until December 15–20. To co-finance the program, 412 million rubles will be allocated from the budgets of the constituent entities of the Volga Federal District, and another 600 million rubles. the federation will invest.

According to carriers, the introduction of new conditions for assessing the efficiency of flights will benefit airlines. “Last year we were faced with a situation where certain flights were constantly not loaded, and we saw no way to prove to the Federal Air Transport Agency and the embassy that the route would not work,” says Sergei Korotkov, head of the commercial department of Orenburg Airlines. Utair airline CEO Andrey Martirosov called the introduction of the new condition “a sign of effective project management,” which is beneficial to both the authorities and carriers: “At the first stage of the project, the state subsidized all flights regardless of their load. Now there is a transition to effective management, which is dictated by the need to subsidize only lines that have development potential. Accordingly, air carriers are interested not just in receiving subsidies, but in developing destinations that are of interest to passengers.” According to Sergei Korotkov, it is unlikely that airlines will take over unprofitable flights withdrawn from others, but the introduction of a flight efficiency coefficient will make it possible to close unprofitable routes, as happened this year in other districts that launched the program later, where the efficiency coefficient was already taken into account.

Alexandra Vikulova

Air passengers will be counted again