Trudinism of airports

The federal authorities are ready to unite Moscow airports before transferring them to the management of a single company. According to Kommersant , the state will attach the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Administration of Domodedovo Airport” (AAD) to the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Administration of Civil Airports (Aerodromes)” (Yeah). It was decided to unite these two structures back in 2001, but the case “slowed down” a debt of 640 million rubles, which was accumulated by AAD. In the case of unification, this would greatly spoil the reporting of the aha, apparently, the debt of the AAD will be paid either by the concessionaire, or at the expense of the money that it will be given to the budget.

Recall that according to the federal legislation, their infrastructure does not belong to airport operators - it is owned by the state and is only leased. Depending on the rate at which the runways, platforms, a signaling equipment, parking and other facilities are leased, the airport administration sets the cost of its services for airlines, which, in turn, is reflected on the price of air tickets.

The infrastructure of the Moscow aviation unit is under the jurisdiction of two FSUPs. First of all, it is the FSUE Aga, created in 2002, under the control of which is the airports of Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, as well as dozens of objects throughout the country. The Domodedovo Airport is under the control of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise AAD, which back in 1998 signed an Airport Domodedovo CJSC for 75 years.

FSUE AAD tried to challenge the contract with a commercial company in courts, as a result, an agreement was concluded according to which the rent for the airport should be reviewed every five years “by mutual agreement”. Back in 2012, the operator of Domodedovo Airport paid only 92 million rubles a year for renting property, but then the rate was revised, and now for the rental of Domodedovo, FSUE AAD receives more than 410 million rubles a year. For comparison, for rent Sheremetyevo, FSUE, yeah, receives 210 million, Vnukovo brings about 120 million.

With such considerable income from rent, two FSUPs are deeply unprofitable enterprises - the federal government spends tens of billions of rubles to maintain the performance of airports and their development.

Domodedovo airport . Photo: domededovo.ru

Over the past 20 years, Moscow airports have developed as independent enterprises, and the emergence of a competitive market has become a regular result, in which each airport is trying to offer the airlines the best conditions, and passengers are the widest network of routes. This situation, according to the state, the owner of all three airports, although it made it possible to significantly improve the service at the airports, but leads to additional budget costs to maintain and develop infrastructure.

It was in order to reduce costs that the federal authorities conceived a plan to unite all the three largest metropolitan airports under the management of one company. It is assumed that a single operator will have more opportunities for attracting funds for the development of airfields than each of the structures separately, as well as with a high probability, it will be possible to borrow money at lower interest.

The disputes are not really difficult for understanding ordinary citizens that are not really “far from the people”: in 2013, more than 70 million passengers passed through the three largest metropolitan airports, this is approximately two “round-trip” flights for each resident of the Moscow region.

If you combine Vnukovo and Sheremetyevo airport operators quite easily (they both belong to the state), then with Domodedovo it is much more complicated.

Dmitry Mason

The company "International Domodedovo Airport", which runs the airport, belongs to the businessman Dmitry Kamenchik, and he is not going to take the business he created so simply.

Domodedovo is the first airport of the metropolitan node, which in the early 2000s was reconstructed by all existing international standards. It was then that the Domodedovo by passenger traffic successfully bypassed Sheremetyevo and is still the leader in this indicator. In 2013, Domodedovo served 30.8 million passengers, Sheremetyevo 29.3 million, and Vnukovo - only 11.2 million.

It was the operator of the Domodedovo airport that was the first to build a business scheme that was most like a western model, where airports receive only about half of the income from their main activity, and the rest due to rent and related sources of income.

Domodedovo, however, in addition to constant disputes with the state due to a 75-year lease agreement, “rested on the ceiling due to the fact that the airport has only two runways.

On the one hand, it is a sin to complain to the airport operator - “Domodedovo” already has technically the most convenient stripes: they are far enough from each other so that two aircraft can take up and landing. In Vnukovo, two stripes intersect, which, in principle, excludes their simultaneous use, and in Sheremetyevo, the stripes are too close to each other, so the dispatchers have to verify the schedule of take -off and landings up to the second.

Domodedovo airport. Photo: domededovo.ru

On the other hand, 30 million passengers per year are a good result, but far from the record 94 million that pass annually through the airport in Atlanta. Moreover, according to expert forecasts, by 2020 the number of passengers of the Moscow Airline may almost double and reach 130 million a year. If people will not be able to accept three main airports, they will have to use the smaller ones that may occur on the basis of former military airfields in the suburbs. The creation of a civilian airport in Zhukovsky is already being discussed, and Suleiman Kerimov back in 2010 began a project to create an airport for a business aviation in Kubinka with the participation of Istyunion .

To avoid competition, Domodedovo needs to build the third runway, but for a long time the state prevented the promotion of this project. The fact is that, according to the law, the third runway should belong to the government and, accordingly, be built on state money and on state land.

After many rounds of negotiations between the Domodedovo operator and the Federal Air Transport Agency in early April 2014, a tender was still announced to search for a contractor for the construction of a new runway for 13 billion rubles. However, plans to transfer the three largest airports in the metropolitan air forces to the concession can greatly upset the owner of CJSC "International Airport Domodedovo". The property that this company rents is at the disposal of FSGUP AAD, and the Federal Air Transport Agency can take it to the concession, without waiting for 2073, when the 75-year lease agreement ends.