Minister says recovery plan for VIM-Avia unable to help

PETROZAVODSK, Nov 17 (PRIME) -- The Federal Air Transport Agency has concluded that a recovery plan for troubled airline VIM-Avia developed by businessman Boris Karlov will not solve any problems, Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov told reporters on Friday.

“Yes, the conclusion was submitted to the Transport Ministry, and it does not look not like a plan but like declarations that have no real and calculated financial models, no investment proposals, and no measures to solve social problems of the company, so we can’t do a system-wide analysis of the proposal as it has no strictly structured program,” he said.

No investor so far has expressed interest in the plan, he added.

VIM-Avia is currently in a difficult financial situation, with its payables estimated at around 10 billion rubles. The airline had delayed a large number of flights from mid-summer to September 25, when it said it had no money to continue operations and had to stop charter flights. The government and Aeroflot pledged financial support to VIM-Avia.

A source close to the airline’s management earlier said that Karlov, his company Aurora Investments, creditor banks, as well as employees of VIM-Avia’s financial department offered a plan to bail out the airline to the Finance Ministry and the Federal Air Transport Agency. The ministry later confirmed receiving the plan. The Transport Ministry ordered the agency to study the plan.

(59.9898 rubles – U.S. $1)

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