Airports are asking the Ministry of Transport to allow not to write off overdue foreign equipment, fearing many hours of queues - "Kommersant"

The Airport Association, which includes Domodedovo, Pulkovo, “Airports of the North”, the Far East and another 30 more, asked the Ministry of Transport to allow them not to write off foreign equipment for the inspection of baggage and passengers after the end of operation. This was reported by Kommersant with reference to a letter addressed to the Minister of Transport Vitaly Savelyev.

Foreign technical means of inspection (TSD) are designed for ten years, while 90% of airports in Russia are equipped with equipment from the USA, Great Britain, Germany and Finland. In many airports, the service life of TSD is already expired, and due to sanctions it is impossible to replace it with a new one.

“Airports will be forced to switch to manual and visual inspection, which can lead to enormous many hours of traffic jams in the special control zone, and in some cases to unintentional errors,” the letter says.

The interlocutors of the publication at one of the airports noted that the renewal of the resource does not guarantee equipment. Pulkovo believes that the work of TSD can be continued after the expiration of the service life, and if necessary, offered to apply for a replacement for Russian, Chinese and Belarusian manufacturers.

One of the large airports noted that they hope to maintain relations with Russian dealers of the American Rapiscan Systems and the German Smiths Heimann. The source of the publication emphasized that the transition to Russian counterparts is not considered due to doubts about the comparable speed of maintenance and execution of the order on time: “Will there be all the components necessary in our production for repair or assembly-so far a question is still. Western manufacturers have established themselves with the speed of warranty service, rich equipment and uninterrupted functionality. ”