the Movement of air transport in Russia is gradually becoming a privilege only for wealthy people. The cost of the ticket, even for the most modest flight from Moscow to any domestic city with the beginning of the year increased on average by 10-30%. According to the Minister of transport Eugene Dietrich, on the background of the pandemic in 2020, passenger traffic in our country will be reduced by more than half from 128 million to 60 million passengers. And this despite the optimistic scenario of development of events. As suggested by independent experts, in connection with the financial crisis and the reduction in the number of clients as well as new arrangements for the accommodation of passengers have developed a scheme in which the people in the cabin will be put in a “staggered” that the cost of tickets will grow by 50-70%.
According to Dietrich, there are two forecasts of how to recover from domestic aircraft manufacturers in a pandemic. The optimistic option is hoping that the ridership will fall for the year to 53%, and the forecast says that the number of customers will decrease by 75%. “I mean, we some time to lie down and, accordingly, if we begin intensive flying, not in July, and in the fall, then potentially we’ll move a quarter of the volume of passenger traffic, which was last year, and finally restore the industry by September of next year”, — said the Minister.
As suggested by independent experts, the head of the Ministry of transport is not exaggerating. In March, representatives of the aviation industry said that the losses of Russian airlines flight restrictions due to pandemic COVID-19 in countries such as China, Israel, Italy, Spain, France, Germany only this year could reach 100 billion rubles. Overall, in 2019, approximately 30 European States, with which Russia has restricted the air, traveled about 17 million Russians — more than half of flying airplanes.
According to the head of the Internet portal Avia.ru Roman Gusarov, do not forget that as a result of the restrictions that are imposed in connection with the epidemic, reduced not only the domestic flights of passengers abroad. Also significantly reduced passenger traffic from abroad. “It’s about 40 million people a year”, — says the expert.
but inside the country, according to him, only in may, the value of the sale and booking of tickets compared to the same month last year rose more than 10%. This is confirmed by the data service OneTwoTri ticket: the average ticket price of economy class one way domestic flights rose by 12%, from 5.7 thousand rubles in March to 6.4 thousand rubles in April.
Flight in both directions, according to the portal “Capabilit”, in April, increased in price by almost 20%. At the same time Rosstat reports that in April the average cost of flying economy class up to 5.3 thousand rubles per 1 thousand km, which is almost 6% superior to the average ticket price this March and by 4% in comparison with April of last year. Above this level the cost of the ticket was raised only in post-crisis 2010, when it amounted to 6.5 thousand rubles.
This statistic can be a sentence for the Russian aviation industry. According to Gusarov, now in our market there are about 100 carriers. But only 10% of them provide 90% of all major flights used by the majority of the population. Consequently, with the growth of transportation costs, small companies will have to leave the market, even if they have made one or two flights a day. Otherwise, the cost of their tickets, which threatens to grow at least twice, will be comparable to the fare for a flight into space.
by the Way, the Minister Dietrich explained that the seated passengers in the cabin, taking into account social distancing will lead to a new rise in ticket prices. “Indeed, in this case, the salons will be twice less passengers, which again will affect the cost of the tickets. Customers will have to throw at least 60%. It will be easier to walk, and flying on airplanes again, as in the early days of air transport, will become a luxury item, not a vehicle of ordinary people”, — considers the novel of hussars.
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