FSVT attempts to avoid embarrassing charter failures

Published: 5/12/2000

The Russian and Bulgarian aviation authorities have signed a bilateral agreement designating Aeroflot, AviaExpressCruise and Balkan as the assigned national carriers on routes linking Russia and Bulgaria. According to the agreement a new carrier may be added for scheduled or charter flights, but only with the agreement of the existing carriers. This state of virtual monopoly for the two Russian carriers has been forced on the authorities according to the FSVT, due to a number of cases were Russian charter carriers have failed to meet their obligations and resulting in the need to repatriate Russians vacationing in Bulgaria, to the irritation of both governments. Aeroflot according ot reports was not interested in increasing its frequency of flights to Sofia and in serving the provincial cities, which led to a selection by the FSVT of a smaller airline to fill the gap. The winner, Moscow based AviaExpressCruise, recently awarded the Wings of Russia award as the fastest growing of Russa's small airlines, operates about 40 scheduled flights a week,with daily flights to Barnaul, Stavropol, Elista and Donetsk out of Vnukovo Airport in Moscow. The airline's fleet is made up of leased Tupolevs, 2 Tu-154Ms, 1 TU-154B, 4 Tu-134s and 5 owned Yak-40s to destinations throughout Russia and Kutaisi, Erevan, Tbilisi, Batumi and Baku in the CIS. The airline's commercial director Andrei Gugel said the airline also has plans, using recently aquired rights, to open flights to Vladivostok, Vladikavkaz and Izhevsk. Their Bulgarian services commenced on the 29th April with a flights to to Burgas which will rise to four flights a week and five to Varna, flown by Tu-154Min the summer months and Tu-134 or Yak-40 during the winter. Most of the flights will be flown from Vnukovo, but according to Gugel they are in negotiation with East Line for flights from Domodedovo The airline has flown charters to Bulgaria for three years (as well as to Croatia, Slovenia and Spain) and has built a client base among travel agents covering the region. To cater for increase in destinations, AviaExpressCruise is increasing its Yak-40 fleet up to seven and considering operational or financial lease of the Yak-42 and Tu-204. Sometime ago the airline operated Perm Airline's Tu-204 on the routes to Chita and Barnaul, leased via the Tupolev Aerotrans company.

Article ID: 1762