The Federal Air Transport Agency is forced to stop airline flights

Alfa Bank, which is actively trying to collect debts from UTair airline, has launched a new attack on the carrier. The bank, through the court, demanded that Rosaviation, Rostransnadzor and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "State Corporation for Air Traffic Management in the Russian Federation" (ATM) stop providing air navigation services to the company. The ban may affect more than 160 aircraft and helicopters, but Rosaviatsiya believes that this will not affect the main passenger transportation, since a significant part of UTair aircraft is leased.

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Photo: Kommersant / Oleg Kharseev

General Director of UTair Aviation Andrey Martirosov

Photo: Kommersant / Alexander Shcherbak / buy photo

Alfa Bank legally demanded that Rosaviation, Rostransnadzor and Federal State Unitary Enterprise ATM stop air navigation services for UTair airline, two sources familiar with the bank's claims told ITAR-TASS. Kommersant Bank explained that they are demanding that the air navigation services provided by the Federal Air Transport Agency to UTair aircraft seized under the bank's claim for $11.8 million be declared illegal. The claim against the departments and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise was filed on Tuesday; the exact number of seized aircraft in the company and the bank is not known called. According to a Kommersant source, we can talk about about 150 helicopters, two Tu-154 and several An-2. The ato.ru portal estimated the bank's losses during their sale or re-registration at 342 million rubles.

The bank has already filed eight claims against UTair, the total amount of claims for six claims is almost $20.5 million and 139.1 million rubles. Also, according to the claim of Alfa Bank for 100 million rubles. On Tuesday, airfield equipment belonging to the UTair group of UTG was arrested at Vnukovo airport. The airline continues to receive claims from other counterparties, for example, yesterday the Lufthansa Group subsidiary SG Sky Chefs Rus demanded 7.9 million rubles from UTair. In total, 14 claims were filed in December, not counting the claims of Alfa Bank.

UTair has long been faced with financial difficulties (see, for example, Kommersant on December 9). According to UTair's IFRS reporting for 2013, the net loss amounted to 4.5 billion rubles, liabilities reached almost 114 billion rubles. (60 billion rubles of which are short-term). At the end of the year, operating leasing agreements for the UTair group were valued at $1.2 billion. For the nine months of 2014, according to RAS, UTair reduced net profit by 23.8 times, to 9.2 million rubles, short-term liabilities amounted to 64.2 billion rubles, long-term - 28.2 billion rubles.

Alfa Bank explained to Kommersant that, based on the decision of the Moscow Arbitration Court, the bailiffs “prohibited the execution of transactions and the operation of aircraft registered to the airline,” but the Federal Air Transport Agency “ignored the ban.” Rostransnadzor did not stop the violation, therefore it is accused of inaction, they say at the bank, specifying that they demand to recover the amount of losses incurred from the Federal Air Transport Agency.

UTair believes that the actions of the creditor and the bailiffs are aimed “not at repaying the debt, but at suspending the carrier’s activities.” Freeze on the company's accounts for 920 million rubles. and seizure of shares and property worth more than 2.7 billion rubles. several times higher than the amount of claims, the company reported. Boris Rybak from Infomost considers the bank's demands "unprecedented", reflecting the extreme nervousness of the situation and the lack of a clear prospect for further actions by UTair in relation to all creditors. At the same time, he recalled that the rules for suspending a carrier’s operator’s certificate also include its financial and economic condition.

The Federal Air Transport Agency called Kommersant's claims against the departments "an attempt to put direct pressure on the federal executive authorities when resolving a dispute between business entities." The department believes that these requirements cannot apply to foreign-made passenger aircraft, on which UTair carries out the bulk of transportation, since they are leased. According to the airline, its fleet includes 109 foreign aircraft and only 19 domestic ones, as well as about 180 domestic helicopters; at the end of the year it had 67 aircraft under lease. The Federal Air Transport Agency emphasized that the agency “receives conflicting court decisions” and will turn to higher courts for clarification.

Elizaveta Kuznetsova

Alfa Bank puts UTair on hold