The Russian Transport Ministry offers to compensate 23.5 billion rubles of higher jet fuel prices to airlines, Deputy Minister Alexander Yurchik told reporters on Thursday. This reported by PRIME.

“There is no final figure, we need to justify it. There were various proposals, we offered to compensate 23.5 billion but time flies, the deadline and inflation have changed. So maybe this figure will rise to a certain extent, this is an issue of calculation,” Yurchik said.

President Vladimir Putin earlier ordered the government to allocate money to compensate additional costs of airlines due to jet fuel price growth.

Yurchik said that airlines cannot compensate the losses fast enough because they are limited by demand, which does not change, and by market competition.