Carriers are preparing to lower their fares

In the first quarter of this year, the aviation industry was in the red of 45 billion rubles, according to the report of the Association of Air Carriers. This is only slightly less than the loss of all the past year. The first quarter is traditionally not the most profitable for businesses. But even judging by the first few months of the last three years, the tendency to increase losses is obvious. For the first quarter of 2018, they amounted to 34 billion and in 2017, to 21 billion rubles.

Last-fought carriers are slowing ticket prices, but fuel price hikes and unfavorable exchange rates are hitting them, said Oleg Panteleev, executive director of the Aviaport agency:

All this is due to a significant increase in the cost of aviation fuel – it is a global trend. But in Russia, it has also been superimposed on a fairly dynamic increase in the costs of exchange rate differences.

This represents a significant portion of Russian airline spending denominated in dollars. And at the same time, we understand that after the new increase of the dollar exchange rate in 2018, the airlines were faced with the fact that, mainly in ruble, the revenue unfortunately did not increase by significantly. "

Experts do not exclude the withdrawal of certain market players. The media notably wrote about Utair's serious financial difficulties. Representatives of the company have even declared anti-crisis measures allowing them to avoid bankruptcy. The government has repeatedly offered its support to the aviation industry. Last year, the Department of Transportation had the idea of ​​compensating the carriers for half the cost of fuel, but subsequently refused it. But in April of the current year, the Ministry of Finance agreed to reinstate VAT on domestic flights bypbading Moscow, in order to contain price increases and increase the demand for regional flights.

Difficult times wait for carriers: companies can not raise prices because of Dmitry Adamidov, independent transportation economics badyst, is convinced that the state does not have a clear plan to support the industry. "All airline marketing is built by taking the maximum amount of money that the consumer is willing to pay, under any pretext. It's not necessarily a simple price increase – it's some sales and discounts, so the person bought a ticket in advance, perhaps for routes that she did not plan.

If there is no price increase in the market, it means that consumers do not have any money either. In fact, in 2019, some areas have progressed very well – from 15% to 20%.

But they can not climb in an uncontrollable way, because pbadengers opt either for alternative means of transport or to appeal to other companies working on this route, including foreign companies. The government must constantly support the industry. If you do not help periodically financially, we will simply not be part of the airline industry.

The question is that the process should be reasonably organized. Although all this naturally exists, in manual mode. When an airline starts having problems, it starts with it a kind a separate story, it's given some special benefits.

Although each case is considered separately. Systematically, nobody wants to do that.

Dmitry Adamidov

Independent Analyst in Transportation Economics

Earlier, the Association of Air Transport Operators sent a call to Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev. Industry representatives are concerned that because of The increase in the cost of aviation kerosene constitutes the risk of non-compliance with Vladimir Putin's May decree on the increase of regional traffic. The government believes that companies must reduce and unify their fleets.

Vladimir Sokolov