A new carrier may be established in Crimea, TASS reports with reference to Deputy Director of Civil Aviation Programs Directorate of United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), Sergey Turik. The project was submitted to the Prime-minister of Crimea, Sergey Aksenov, for consideration, Kommersant reports.
It is planned that the carrier will operate six Sukhoi SuperJet 100 aircraft; Simferopol will be its base airport. The amount of investments in this project is assessed at 1,5 billion rubles, and the preparation will take about three months. At first the carrier will be performing flights on 14 routes, then its route network may be expanded to 36 destinations (90% - flights to different regions of Russia, 10% — flights to Moscow). The airline is going to reach passenger traffic of 500 thousand passengers by 2016.
The carrier will reach the breakeven point in three years or later, Turik noted. He thinks that establishment of the airline will help promote the “major product of Russian civil aircraft industry — SSJ 100 aircraft” (manufactured by Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company (SCAC), part of UAC) and decrease the risk of Russia’s major air carriers stopping flights to Crimea. UAC explained that this is “just one of the ideas discussed in the network of selling previously ordered aircraft, which customers failed to purchase” and “it is being considered”. In January 2015 UAC President Yuri Slusar said that six SSJ 100 jets manufactured under a contract with UTair are stationed in Zhukovsky (the airline didn’t pay for the liners). A source close to SCAC said that new SSJ 100 aircraft might also be delivered to a customer; the current output is three jets of the type per month. According to him, the jets may be delivered to a customer under an operating lease agreement, but the parties are still looking for a lessor willing to participate in the project.
Russian Ministry of Transport didn’t hear about such initiative, but Crimean Minister of Transport Anatoly Tsurkin said that the republic’s authorities have been negotiating establishment of a new airline in Simferopol for a long time; however, UAC’s proposal “was the first real one”. The major advantage of the project offered by UAC is the existence of the aircraft, he noted. «The new carrier will help make the flights to Crimea cheaper, because it will be serviced in the airport on favorable terms. We will be able to increase the number of flights to neighboring cities: demand for them in Crimea is high,» Tsurkin explained. The new airline will perform flights to Moscow, Krasnodar, Anapa, Sochi, St. Petersburg and other cities. According to the minister, the source of finance is being discussed. The First vice-premier of Crimea Mikhail Sheremet (supervises transport) said, that he is not ready to discuss this matter.
We remind you that establishment of a new air carrier in Crimea is being discussed since 2014; earlier Grozny Avia and Red Wings were considered as potential candidates. Later it was planned to establish the carrier on the basis of Red Wings, but Moscow and Simferopol failed to agree on financial part of the project. Russian Ministry of Transport confirmed that it makes no sense to establish a new airline in Crimea due to seasonality of flights to the peninsula and difficulties connected with establishing an MRO base there.
A source close to an airline, which operates flights to Crimea, doubts that UAC’s calculation is correct: «Taking into account the currency exchange rate, 1,5 billion rubles will be enough for just three aircraft provided that the carrier will get a significant discount». The list price of SSJ 100 — $35 million, launch customer of Superjet – Aeroflot, paid $18 million for each jet. In 2015 SCAC is going to accept payments for sold aircraft in rubles, SCAC Vice-president Evgeny Andrachnikov said. The source believes that this amount will be enough for training of crews and creation of spare parts storage; however, Russian legislation requires a carrier to operate at least 8 aircraft (three ones for charter carriers). Sanctions may also complicate the operation of SSJ 100. «Over 60% of the jet’s components are manufactured in foreign countries. Flights to Crimea may cause problems with foreign suppliers,» the source explained.
