Battle for a place on an airplane: Airlines are asked to cancel the loading requirement of not more than 50% of flights

With the support of the Ministry of Transport, airlines entered into the fight against Rospotrebnadzor due to the recommendation to load no more than 50% of places on flights, which threatens air carriers with inevitable losses, and passengers-a sharp increase in ticket prices. Airlines are asked to cancel the requirement, which can already become mandatory this week. Rospotrebnadzor is not going to abandon his recommendations.

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What's happened

The association of the largest airlines Association of Air Transport operators (AEV) asked the Minister of Transport Yevgeny Dietrich to raise the issue of canceling the requirements of Rospotrebnadzor about the restriction of flight load 50%, Kommersant found out . Airlines believe that there are sufficiently existing measures to minimize risks - mandatory masks for staff and passengers, temperature monitoring at airports and installations in ventilation systems that update air every three minutes. In addition, the actual load in April has already amounted to safe 37%, added in the circulation of AEV.

In Rospotrebnadzor, they do not agree: only temperature measurements are not enough to prevent transmission of infection, Kommersant said in the department. But the requirements can be softened in case of improvement of the epidemiological situation.

The draft recommendations for organizing passenger air transportation Rospotrebnadzorpublished on May 18. The main requirement - the number of passengers on the flight should not exceed 50% of the total number of seats of the aircraft. Today, Rospotrebnadzor must submit the project to the government, after which it can be approved as the order of the chief sanitary doctor, mandatory for all organizations.

What is wrong with the recommendations of Rospotrebnadzor

The proposal caused the indignation of airlines, for which in peacetime the aircraft load below 70% meant that it flies “in minus”. The Minister of Transport Dietrich also spoke out against him,who said that in the case of restrictions, the minimum ticket price could increase to 70 thousand rubles. But the last word in the dispute in the conditions of the epidemic may remain with Rospotrebnadzor, according to the interlocutor of Kommersant in the government.

The restriction on loading will not only not allow air carriers to sell more tickets during the restoration of demand: it destroys the entire economy of large airlines with different types of aircraft, which put the aircraft more or smaller capacity for a flight depending on demand, Forbes was explained by the Forbes by aviation top managers.

The requirement will be especially strongly impacted on the only Russian low -cost airline “Victory”: the economy of budget carriers is designed for maximum employment of the seats, and in “Victory” in 2019 it was the highest in Russia - 94%. The requirements for disinfection of aircraft will hit the budget carriers: their model is based on a dense flight schedule, which allows maximizing the time of finding the aircraft in the air, and disinfection increases the “reversal” time of the aircraft at the airport from the normative for “victory” for 25 minutes to an hour, or even two.

What am I to me?

The minimum price of a ticket of 70 thousand rubles, which was spoke of Evgeny Dietrich, is a figure of speech, said Forbes, the executive director of the Aviaport agency Oleg Panteleev, but the cost of passenger -kilometer will inevitably increase, and with it the price.