Putin promised to restore direct flights with Egypt. How the ban on air travel between Russia and Ukraine made life difficult for everyone

Resumption of flights to Egypt - the latest news for today.

According to Elhami al-Zayat, the former head of the tourism chamber in Egypt, since 2018 the number Russian tourists at Egyptian resorts should increase to 1,000,000 people.

Egypt fulfilled all the conditions of the Russian authorities so that charters from Moscow to this country would soon be opened. By the end of the month, charters to two cities should be restored - Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh.

By the end of 2018, charters to Egypt from Moscow should be fully opened. According to Aeroflot, three flights during the week fly to Egypt today - on VT, TH and WS.

Let us recall that on October 17, 2018, a regular meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Egyptian President Abdul Fattah Khalil Al-Sisi took place in Sochi, at which specific ways to resume friendly relations between our countries were discussed.

Therefore, now many Russian airlines express a positive opinion about the work of the Egyptian authorities, who have been modernizing their airports to ensure the safety of tourists, including Russian ones.

At all airports resort towns Egypt has made improvements to equipment that can detect explosives. The video surveillance system has been improved, as has the pre-flight inspection procedure. The responsible departments of Egypt have allocated about ten million dollars for these purposes.

This was precisely the demand of the Russian authorities, who repeatedly carried out checks at the airports of resort cities in Egypt.

According to the statement of the former deputy head of the Central Bank of Egypt, and now the Minister of Tourism of Egypt, Rania Mashat, Egypt has already done everything possible to regain the flow of tourists that was several years ago. Now the resort is in great demand among residents of Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Germany. Last year many tourists arrived from China. Based on this, we can conclude that the tourism industry is gradually returning to normal, informs the portal rosregistr.ru

WHEN WILL CHARTERS BE AVAILABLE TO EGYPT?

Some time ago it was said that Egypt would be open to Russians this fall. But in the end, this will happen no earlier than March-April 2019.

According to the majority of Russian tour operators, air traffic for Russian flights to Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh will be restored as early as December 2018. But then it will take another couple of months for Rostourism to develop new tourism programs for residents of all regions of Russia.

“We believe that this will happen in the spring of 2019, because air communication with Cairo has already been established,” emphasized the executive director of the Association travel agencies Russia (ATOR).

“Purely theoretically, even if Egypt is suddenly declared open tomorrow, it is impossible to quickly create charter programs and find the required number of aircraft to launch the required volume of traffic there,” confirmed Maxim Puzankov, president of the Ural Tourism Association.

LATEST NEWS ABOUT THE OPENING OF AIR SERVICES WITH RESORT CITIES IN EGYPT

The Egyptian authorities are confident that in March-April 2019, air traffic will be open every day. resort town Egypt. Currently, air traffic is established only with Cairo airport, which has passed all checks. But such a vacation is not popular among tourists, since getting to your hotel from Cairo is very long, it can take from 6 to 7 hours, which is not at all beneficial for tourists.

Egyptian Ambassador to Moscow Ihab Nasr expressed hope that Russian tourists will be able to vacation en masse in the resorts of Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh as early as 2018. In his opinion, this is evidenced by the results of the meeting between the presidents of the Russian Federation and the Arab Republic in Sochi.

The diplomat noted that the resumption of flights is at the final stage. “I hope in the very near future, even before the end of 2018, I really hope,” the ambassador said about the timing of the start of charter programs.

Most other experts in the field of tourism are inclined to believe that the destination can open immediately after the New Year. Thus, Egyptian tourism expert Abdul Aziz believes that the opening of charter flights to Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh will occur in early January 2019. His opinion is quoted by ATOR Bulletin.

Sergei Samokhvalov, director for development of the Global Travel travel agency network, gave a less optimistic forecast - in his opinion, air traffic will be restored at best in March-April 2019.

We tell our clients right away: most likely, regular flights will open first for those companies that have permission. According to our estimates, it will still be no earlier than mid-spring. These are the most optimistic expectations. Because, as we understand, documents on security issues have not yet been signed,” he told the portal life.ru

Adviser to the head of Rostourism on transport Dmitry Gorin noted that the number of tourists visiting Egypt has dropped significantly.

Currently, no more than 100 thousand people visit Egypt, but before the closure of flights there were 2.5–3 million tourists. The numbers speak for themselves; tourists, of course, expect more comfortable charter flights,” Gorin noted.

The visit of the Egyptian President to Russia was supposed to be unique in the history of not only Abdelfattah Sisi himself, but also Vladimir Putin. Since Soviet times, an Egyptian friend has not been received in our country on such a grand scale. The night before, the two presidents walked along the Sochi embankment and talked with vacationers, who resolutely stated that the resorts Krasnodar region no worse than the Egyptian ones, and Putin and Sisi ended the day with an informal dinner at the Adler restaurant “Vysota 5642”.

On Wednesday the program was planned to be even more extensive, but the tragedy in Kerch forced all plans to change. Opening the meeting with the President of Egypt in a limited format, Putin was brief and did not comment in any way on the guest’s remark about the desire to reopen air traffic between the Red Sea resorts and Russian cities.

After two hours of negotiations on the abbreviated program, the presidents came out to reporters.

Before we inform you about the results of our work today, I would like to say that a few hours ago in the city of Kerch, a tragic event occurred,” Putin began with the most important thing. - As a result of the explosion of a prepared explosive device, people were killed and many were wounded. I want to express my condolences to the relatives of the victims and express the hope that the victims will recover as quickly as possible. We will do everything for this. It is already clear that this is a crime. The motives and versions of this tragedy are being carefully studied. In memory of the victims, I ask that you honor their memory with a minute of silence.

The hall - both delegations, Russian and Egyptian journalists - stood up. And only after that the summing up began. Putin and Sisi signed an Agreement on Comprehensive Partnership and Strategic Cooperation, discussed the construction of a nuclear power plant in Egypt by Russian specialists and the supply of Russian grain to the Egyptians.

First of all, I would like to mention a large contract worth 1 billion euros - passenger cars for Egypt, - the president recalled about the agreement on 1300 passenger carriages leaving for Cairo. - We also considered the issue of full-scale restoration of tourist exchanges and full air traffic.

The Egyptians held their breath at this phrase, but there was no sensation.

In April, direct regular flights on the route Moscow - Cairo were resumed; today we discussed the issue of charter flights on popular flights among Russians. tourist destinations“To Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh,” Putin said. - Our Egyptian friends are doing everything necessary to increase the level of security. We will strive to restore charter flights on these routes in the near future.

MOSCOW, October 24 – RIA Novosti/Prime. It will be exactly one year since the introduction of the mutual ban on Tuesday, October 25th. direct flights between Russia and Ukraine. During this time, the parties were unable to sit down at the negotiating table, so experts and political scientists, while assessing the losses of carriers differently, are unanimous on one thing - passengers will not see the Moscow-Kyiv flight schedule on airport boards any time soon.

Ukraine “closed the sky” for Russian passenger and freight transport from October 25, 2015 - with the start of the winter schedule. The sanctions list included the largest Russian carrier Aeroflot, then Transaero, which was still in a pre-bankrupt state, the Yakutia airline, and the airlines of the S7 group. All of the listed carriers flew charter or regular flights to what became Russian Crimea.

On the same day, Russia introduced mirror measures against Ukrainian airlines. The ban, the Federal Air Transport Agency noted a year ago, will remain in effect until the decision of the Ukrainian authorities regarding Russian airlines will not be cancelled.

However, as the department stated, after the MH17 crash near Donetsk, the vast majority of Russian airlines refused to operate transit flights through Ukrainian airspace for safety reasons, and only a small part of domestic carriers made transit flights through the territory of a neighboring state when necessary.

"Ukraine and I used to have a dynamically developing market air services according to the principle " open sky"Unfortunately, we were forced to give an adequate response to the initiative of the Ukrainian side," the chairman recalls Public Council under the Federal Air Transport Agency Pyotr Deinekin.

Victims and winners

The decision on the part of Kyiv hit, first of all, the aviation industry and airports of Ukraine itself, said Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov. According to data from Russian airlines cited by the Federal Air Transport Agency, more than 70% of passengers on all flights between the two states were Ukrainians. Passenger traffic between the two countries for 8 months of 2015 amounted to about 800 thousand people.

“No tragedy happened here, but Ukraine lost a lot. Our airlines are conscientious payers, airport taxes and funds for the passage of airspace were paid to Ukraine regularly, so aviation enterprises Ukraine suffered great losses,” says Deinekin.

Director of the Ukrainian Institute for Policy Analysis and Management Ruslan Bortnik recalls Ukraine’s losses from transit. “We have lost not only the opportunity to earn money on air travel with Russia, but also part of the transit potential. Many Russians flew to Russia through Ukrainian airports, I think that today we are talking about a tens of percent drop in transit potential, although the number of air passengers traveling to Ukraine this year has increased," the expert said.

Last November, Andrei Pivovarsky, then the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine, estimated the losses of the State Enterprise for Air Traffic Services of Ukraine from the ban on transit traffic for Russian airlines at 25-30 million euros per year.

According to the head of the analytical service of the Aviaport agency, Oleg Panteleev, it is quite difficult to accurately estimate the losses of Russian airlines from bans on flights to Ukraine. “Obviously, there are no exact figures (losses - ed.), because airlines were mostly able to quickly revise their route networks and schedules, through this, find other sources of income and opportunities to use their aircraft,” he believes. According to the expert, the losses of carriers are associated, firstly, with a general reduction in the number of flights, and secondly, with the need to fly over territories countries

Not only airlines, but also airports suffered losses. In February of this year, Domodedovo Deputy Director Denis Nuzhdin assessed the losses Russian airports from the suspension of air traffic with Ukraine in the amount of 690 million rubles.

And, for example, the Belarusian airline Belavia, on the contrary, benefited from the cessation of air traffic between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, Panteleev said. “It is this carrier that offers the shortest and fastest option to get from the vast majority of points in Russia to a number of cities in Ukraine,” he said. This air carrier was able to transfer a significant part of passengers traveling on direct flights to its planes with a transfer in Minsk.

Belavia itself reported that immediately after the cessation of air traffic between the two countries, it doubled its passenger traffic on the Minsk-Kyiv line. And in December, the carrier opened a flight to Kharkov.

There is readiness, but no contacts

At the end of October 2015, the State Aviation Service of Ukraine received a letter from the Federal Air Transport Agency with a proposal to hold negotiations on restoring air traffic between the countries, but the Ukrainian agency stated that the position expressed by the Russian Federation is unacceptable for Kyiv.

The Ukrainian side insisted that in order to begin the negotiation process, Russia must stop operating flights to Crimea and pay a fine for flights of Russian airlines over territories where Kyiv has closed air space.

And in November, the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure announced that Kyiv would not allow airlines from the Russian Federation to fly to the country’s airports while they were flying to Crimea.

Over the course of the year, Moscow has repeatedly expressed its readiness for negotiations and compromise. In August, the head of the Ministry of Transport, Maxim Sokolov, once again stated that the Russian Federation is ready to resume dialogue on these issues, both in whole and in parts.

“In the near future, there is absolutely no opportunity to restore these transportation and direct air connections between Ukraine and Russia. Obviously, everything comes down to political ambitions, and the political confrontation that has unfolded between Ukraine and Russia,” says Bortnik.

Deinekin also believes that there will be no progress on this issue in the near future. “Are you asking how long this will last? Unfortunately, it will last a long time. So until political will is shown, this absurd situation will continue,” he believes.

"The Russian side is open to dialogue on this issue. The Ukrainian side does not enter into official contacts,” the press service of the Russian Ministry of Transport confirmed to RIA Novosti.

“The president recently put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council to extend sanctions for another year. This is the answer to the question about the possible resumption of air traffic,” the State Aviation Service of Ukraine answered RIA Novosti’s question.

Since 2015, restrictive measures have been in force against Russian individuals and legal entities in Ukraine. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko in October, by his decree, put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council on the extension and expansion of the sanctions list in relation to legal and individuals RF. The list has been supplemented by 167 enterprises. In particular, sanctions have been introduced against UTair airlines that limit, partially or completely stop the transit of resources, flights and transportation across the territory of Ukraine.

Russia and Egypt will strive to resume charter flights to popular Egyptian resorts in the near future. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated this at a press conference following negotiations with the President of Egypt.

Details are in the material of the ATOR Bulletin.

“We discussed the issue of full-fledged air services and tourist exchanges. In April, direct flights on the Moscow - Cairo route were resumed. We discussed the issue of resuming charter flights on popular tourist destinations among Russians - Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh. We noted that our Egyptian friends are doing everything necessary to increase the level of security. We will strive to resume charter flights on these routes in the near future,” said Vladimir Putin.

According to ATOR sources, the next inspections of Egyptian airports are already included in the schedule of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation. This was confirmed today to the Russian media by the head of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, Evgeniy Dietrich. According to him, Russia and Egypt agreed to send Russian experts to this Middle Eastern country to check security issues related to the problem of resuming direct flights with the resorts of Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh. However, he refrained from answering the question of when such a group would be able to head to Egypt.

According to Egyptian media reports, Russian experts are ready to be received in Hurghada and Sharm. This was stated by sources in the Egyptian Ministry of Aviation. In total, over the past three years since the suspension of air traffic, the Russian Federation has carried out 12 inspections of Egypt’s air harbors. At the same time, the Egyptian Ministry of Aviation insists that “Egypt has fulfilled all requests from the Russian side to improve security measures and is ready to receive Russian experts at a time when they deem it possible.”

According to ATOR, a number of Russian carriers have permission to fly to Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada. When restrictions on charters to Egypt are lifted, airlines can announce the launch of programs at resorts 15 days after their approval by the Federal Air Transport Agency. According to expert calculations, in winter season On Egyptian routes, it is possible to supply about 600 charter import flights per month. This is more than 30% of the estimated volume of charters already planned for the coming winter (about 2,000 flights per month).

In 2017, 94 thousand Russians visited Egypt, who came to the country on their own. The year 2014 turned out to be the highest for the Russian market in terms of volume: then, according to Rosstat, 2.6 million Russians vacationed in Egypt. With the restoration of charters to Egypt, the Country of the Pyramids can count on 2.5-3 million Russian tourists per year. Alternatives to Egypt in the segment budget holiday, especially in low season, no.

ATOR experts say that if permission is received for direct charter communication with the Red Sea resorts in Egypt, the tourist flow will gain momentum within a month.