PRESS: Airports to get 195.4 rbl per each lost passenger

MOSCOW, May 20 (PRIME) – The Russian airports will receive compensations for April–June amounting to 195.4 rubles per each passenger lost due to the coronavirus pandemic as compared with the second quarter of 2019, Kommersant business daily reported on Wednesday quoting a  Transport Ministry draft resolution.

The money will be distributed in proportion to contraction of passenger traffic like a subsidy of 365 rubles per lost passenger was distributed among the airlines. Kommersant said that compensations to the large regional airports will amount to dozens of millions of rubles, while the Moscow airports would receive hundreds of millions of rubles.

For instance, the airport of Crimea’s Simferopol lost 89.5% of its passenger traffic in April, or about 254,200 people and will receive about 50 million rubles in compensation for the month, while Moscow’s Vnukovo airport should receive 320–330 million rubles, the business daily reported.

The government plans to allocate 10.1 billion rubles of subsidies to the airports for April–June. Taking into account the rate of 195.4 per passenger, the money would cover a contraction of about 92% of the passenger traffic in the period as compared with April–June 2019. If the government runs out of money, it will reduce the subsidies to the airports proportionally.

The Transport Ministry has not yet decided on compensations for July–September, but it does not rule out subsidies for the period, Kommersant reported.

Sources told the business daily that the subsidy is serious support to the airport operators, even though the companies will still close the period with a loss. The airports declined to comment as the government may still change the rules of the subsidy, while industry sources told Kommersant that the ministry sent to the government the eighth version of the draft.

(72.3918 rubles – U.S. $1)

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