Business aviation operators say elections are good for business reporting brisk trade in December during Duma elections

Published: 1/17/2000

According to Eugeny Bakhtin, General Director of Avcom and Chairman of the Russian business aviation association, the executive aircraft market was substantially boosted by the parliamentary elections. He said that, in November 1999, a VIP-furnished Tu-134 is was averaging 70-90 hours usage per month, compared to 15-20 hours in August. While he acknowledges that orders have dropped since this high, he fully expects them to be restored as the Presidential campaign gathers momentum and claims that the market, in general, has returned to pre-crisis levels, after a four-fold drop in August 1998. According to Bakhtin, a typical order for an executive Tu-134 or Yak-40 is for one or two weeks, during which a political canvassing team might visit between three and ten destinations. He claims that the Russian-made planes tend to be more popular than their Western counterparts, on “patriotic" grounds and one suspects cost, borne out by the fact that candidates, flying themselves without a support team, will often opt for the high level of comfort provided by western jets. Bakhtin said that the shortage of flyable Tu-134s being experienced by scheduled operators had not yet affected business aviation. He observed that, although executive flights were fewer, revenues were greater, so enabling a premium price to be paid to scheduled operators, when necessary. While he was pessimistic about the financial prospects for the Tu-134M retrofit programme given the resources of carriers, he confirmed that business operators had sufficient resources to spend $2-3m on purchasing one, should the project materialise. According to Bakhtin, the economy of the D-436T1 engines would, in itself, guarantee pay-back. He conceded that Avcom"s new $5m business aviation terminal at Sheremetyevo, which was opened in October 1999, had not reached capacity, but said that numbers were improving on a monthly basis and, while these were less than anticipated, sufficient revenues were being generated to cover the construction costs. Avcom, together with its partner, East Line, has, nevertheless, decided to postpone plans for a $10m business aviation complex at Domodedovo, until revenues from Sheremetyevo improve. Avcom is the largest business jet operator in Russia and has a fleet made up of Yak-40s, Tu-134s, Falcon-20s and BAe-125s.

Article ID: 1320