RUSSIA: Pobeda Airline Fires Pilots After They Were Found Drunk On Duty

Russia’s Pobeda airline has sacked two pilots who attempted to fly an airliner from the Siberian city of Surgut to Dagestan’s Makhachkala while being under the influence, the company said in a statement, citing CEO Andrei Kalmykov.

According to media reports, two intoxicated Pobeda pilots sought to carry out a flight from Surgut to Makhachkala on May 26.

They were determined to be drunk during a pre-flight medical check.

Pobeda has zero tolerance for staff members who drink liquor even outside their work hours, Kalmykov said, as cited by the airline’s press service.

Unfortunately, the medical staff at Surgut airport breached medical check guidelines so Pobeda was deprived of the opportunity to fire the pilots under the relevant article.

However, they were immediately suspended and fired upon mutual agreement of the parties, he added.

The airline’s CEO also said that the company would request that lawmakers amend current legislation so that alcohol consumption by air transport staff can be severely punished.


Tourism Observer

RUSSIA: Traffic Through Moscow Airports Of Vnukovo, Domodedovo And Sheremetyevo Drops In August

Domodedovo International Airport
Passenger traffic through the three airports of Moscow namely Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo continued to climb in August compared to the same month in 2016, albeit at a slower rate than in July 2017.

Vnukovo saw its traffic increase by 22.9% to 2.071 million passengers- against 31.5% in July; Domodedovo, by 5% to over exceeding 3.5 million (5.8% in July); Sheremetyevo, by 19.6% to 4.141 million (22.9% in July).

At Vnukovo, international traffic continued to grow faster than domestic passenger numbers; it increased by 77.3% in August to 875,000 passengers.

The most popular destinations includes Antalya, Larnaca, Istanbul, Barcelona, Pathos, Dushanbe, Baku, and Heraklion. Domestic traffic grew by just 0.4% to 1.196 million passengers.

The most popular destinations were Sochi, Simferopol, Anapa, Mineralnye Vody, St. Petersburg, Makhachkala, Krasnodar, Surgut, and Rostov-on-Don.

A similar trend was observed at Domodedovo, where international traffic grew 15% year-on-year, exceeding 1.6 million passengers.

The most popular destinations were Antalya, Tivat, and Barcelona. Some 1.9 million passengers traveled on domestic routes, 2% down from the same month last year.

The fastest growing routes within Russia were to Krasnodar, Kaliningrad, Ufa, Makhachkala, and Sabetta.

At Sheremetyevo, the trend got reversed: international traffic grew at a slower rate than domestic in August.

The airport served 4.141 million passengers traveling abroad, up 18.3% year-on-year.

Domestic traffic, although smaller in absolute figures at 1.798 million, grew faster at 21.3%.

The most popular destinations out of Sheremetyevo in the past eight months were Paris, Tel Aviv, Prague, Beijing, Shanghai, St. Petersburg, Simferopol, Sochi, Yekaterinburg, and Krasnodar.



Tourism Observer

KAZAKHSTAN: SCAT Airlines Switching Destination Airport From Domodedovo To Vnukovo

Kazakhstan’s SCAT Airlines is in the process of switching the destination airport for its three Moscow services from Domodedovo to Vnukovo. The carrier performed its first flight into Vnukovo from Aktobe on September 6. By October 29, it will have similarly changed the Moscow destination for its other two routes, from Shymkent and Aktau.

This is our 20th year in operation, and we are currently working to develop our route network, SCAT Vice-President Marketing Alexandra Sytnik said. At the current stage, we find that Vnukovo offers convenient maintenance options, an appealing price policy, and a chance of concluding agreements with other airlines.

We have also received multiple requests from passengers to transfer to Vnukovo, which is located closer to the city and offers connection flights that are interesting to them.

Sytnik added that moving to Vnukovo should help the carrier keep its current prices despite the weaking Kazakhstani currency.

SCAT is the first Kazakh airline to launch flights to Vnukovo. The Russian capital city is a key destination for the airline, which expects traffic on its Moscow routes to grow further. In the first seven months of 2017 the figure stood at 33,800 passengers. up 16.5% year-on-year.

The carrier also plans to develop its route network through interline, code-sharing, and special prorate agreements.

We believe that Vnukovo will help us with this, Sytnik announced at the inauguration news conference for the Aktobe-Moscow route.

We will thus offer a great network of connection flights to Kazakh citizens, whereas Russian citizens will avail of our domestic route network, which is the most extensive in Kazakhstan.

This will give travelers the possibility to reach the farther corners of our country.

Sytnik said that SCAT is currently negotiating a possible interline and special prorate agreement, complete with full baggage transfer, with Russia’s UTair Aviation.

The latter uses Vnukovo as one of its bases, and performs about 160 flights per day from there.

SCAT Airlines currently operates 45 domestic and 22 international routes.

Its international destinations are in CIS countries and Georgia, as well as in China and Turkey.

The airline offers routes to several Russian cities other than Moscow, including Astrakhan, Krasnodar, Sochi, Makhachkala, Mineralnye Vody, and Kazan.

At present, SCAT is not allowed to operate flights between Moscow and Kazakhstan’s two largest cities, Astana and Almaty: the current intergovernmental agreements permits the two countries to designate only one operator each for these routes.

For the same reasons, Sytnik said the carrier cannot fly from Astana to Zhukovsky, another airport serving Moscow.

The airline believes that Zhukovsky offers great potential for cargo transportation.

The carrier is considering launching flights to Russia’s Orenburg, Chelyabinsk and St. Petersburg, and might relaunch operations to Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don, and Tomsk.


Tourism Observer