Aviation expert explains reduction in subsidized airlines this year 15:34

The reduction in the volume of state subsidies for domestic flights in Russia indicates that there is no need to subsidize these routes, said “Public News Service” aviation expert Roman Gusarov.

This is either because there is no demand for routes or because airlines’ ability to pay allows them to fly without additional government support.

“One of the tasks of the subsidy is, among other things, to distribute these new routes, to promote them, so that people fly and continue to follow the path of reducing subsidies so that everything goes naturally and there is a normal market pricing and these tickets were open to the public. And the more often the planes fly, the cheaper the plane tickets. And at some point, that cost of a flight approaches the cost of a plane ticket. Then you can actually fly without subsidies. “Because the airline’s expenses do not exceed the revenue from ticket sales,” Gusarov said.

The expert is confident that reducing the volume of government support and the number of routes will not affect the cost of tickets for socially important destinations. However, there may be price changes in areas not included in the incentive program. The aviation expert noted that airlines may also completely stop flights due to low demand.

“Considering the Ministry of Transport and the Federal Air Transport Agency’s approach to these programmes, all socially important routes – and they are subsidized – will continue to be subsidized. That is, where there is no alternative to aviation in many respects, subsidies will remain there and transport accessibility of the population will continue. These are, for example, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Yakutia, Magadan, Sakhalin, Kamchatka.

It was previously reported by airlines. started to cancel flights within Russia due to reduced state support. The subsidy of the program for the implementation of regional flights, bypassing Moscow this year, was reduced from 9 billion to 7.5 billion rubles.