Russia and Bulgaria to increase the number of assigned air carriers

At the end of last week Rosaviation informed about new changes in the Russian-Bulgarian agreement on air traffic, which was signed November 26, 1997. The countries decided on increasing the number of carriers appointed to each pair of cities. It’s agreed that appointed carriers on routes Moscow – Burgas and Moscow – Varna, will be able to do 14 flights a week, and on other agreed services – 7 flights a week. It is also important that during the period between June 1 and September 1, 2012, other companies will be able to arrange flights without coordination with the appointed carrier

Furthermore, Russia confirmed that it’s ready to let the Bulgarian appointed carrier fly the “triangle”, combining Burgas and Varna, from June 1 to September 30, 2012.

It’s the second country in a row with whom Russia has reached an agreement about increasing the number of appointed carriers. The first one was Italy, and respective information appeared at the end of last year, during a big scandal between Aeroflot and Transaero, who were fighting over flights from Moscow to Rome, Milan and Venice.

By the way, there already were “Bulgarian” scandals, concerning the problem of appointed carriers. During spring 2010, S7 started blocking Bulgaria Air, who was trying to attract tour operators with low prices on flights from Novosibirsk to Varna and Burgas. The program that was supposed to start in June 2010 was never launched. At the same time a similar problem arose in Moscow, where S7 did not coordinate charter flights to Bulgaria of six Russian carriers. And the appointed carrier could only handle part of the whole tourist flow, and its prices were 30% bigger, compared to other companies.

Even earlier, in 2009, Transaero protected in court their right to fly from Moscow to Larnaca, which Aeroflot – the appointed carrier – was totally against.

But it was the winter Italian story blown out of proportion by the press that became the last drop. In early December the Russian Federal Antitrust Committee sent a claim to Rosaviation about the retracting of Transaero’s license to fly from Moscow to Milan, Rome and Venice. And on December 26, before receiving an official answer, the Committee stated that a criminal case has been filed against Rosaviation for limitation of competition in Italian skies. At the same time head of the Committee Igor Artemyev signed a directive, stating that one appointed carrier per destination is not enough for healthy competition, and the situation needs to change.

Transaero, in its turn, sent documents to the General Prosecutor Office, to the Arbitration court and to the Ministry of Transport, proving that Rosaviation’s actions were illegal. In the end, head of Rosaviation Alexander Neradko was given an order to eliminate all the violations.

Just after the winter holidays the Minister of Transport Igor Levitin had to state that appointing of carriers for international flights will no longer be carried out by Rosaviation and that right will be delegated to an interdepartmental committee. According to him, the ministry’s position is that each international destination has at least two appointed carriers. “Ticket prices are lower, when several appointed carriers work on the same destination”, - explained Mr. Levitin.