The Ministry for Development of the Far East and Arctic supported an idea to have a self-regulating sector to preserve and develop regional aviation in the Arctic, deputy director of the ministry's department for development of the Arctic zone and infrastructure projects, Vladimir Lushchinsky, told the Arctic 2023 international conference.

The present situation in regional aviation will result in the shrinking network of airfields, in smaller fleets and fewer personnel, he said. The official spoke about mergers of companies with various forms of ownership, which could contribute to the development of competition.

He mentioned two options. The first option is "to retain the old model and to build up investments under programs to develop the network of airfields, the fleet and the pilots. The second option is more radical and it is initiated by the market players - it is an approach to implement the so-called instruments of self-regulating sectors - the participating companies will undertake to develop various directions in the regional aviation sector," he said.

The earlier approach "to import whatever needed and not to develop own production" has affected the regional aviation, which in the Far East and Arctic has been disappearing, he continued.

"Back in the Soviet times, we had centralized planning, financing, development. At the time, where we changed the model to the market economy, these conditions ruined, and the market economy was dictating new approaches. First of all, the approach was to get hold of what brings big revenues and to develop commercial companies," he said.