S7 proposes to extend the period for issuing COVID subsidies to airlines until at least September and at the same time to distribute them at the rate of 1,330 rubles for each "lost" passenger, Interfax reports.

According to the current government decree, subsidies for airlines are distributed at the rate of 365 rubles for each passenger "lost" from February to July 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. A total of 23.4 billion rubles were allocated for these purposes from the reserve fund.

“We carried out our internal calculations within the framework of a possible extension of this decree and believe that the figure should be somewhat higher - about 1330-1350 rubles,” said Deputy General Director for Budget Management of S7 Group Dmitry Kudelkin during a meeting of the RSPP Subcommittee on Aviation and Space.

He also noted that the current version of the resolution does not allow the use of all subsidies allocated by the state. This was confirmed by the leading researcher at the Institute of Transport Economics Fedor Borisov: from 23.4 billion rubles. airlines will probably be able to choose no more than 15 billion rubles, he said at the meeting. At the same time, the Aeroflot group has already received 7.89 billion rubles.

Direct losses of Russian airlines from quarantine restrictions will amount to at least 200 billion rubles, Borisov estimated. To support the industry, he proposed increasing the volume of COVID subsidies and extending their distribution period until the end of this year. It is important, according to him, to weaken quarantine measures: the regions should abandon the practice of mandatory quarantine for visitors from other subjects.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Russian Federation previously completely stopped international air travel, allowing only charter flights for the return of Russian citizens. No restrictions were imposed on flights between regions, but due to a drop in demand due to quarantine, airlines themselves began to cancel flights.