Russian tour operators terminate cooperation with VIM-Avia

MOSCOW, Oct 9 (PRIME) -- Russian tour operators terminated cooperation with troubled airline VIM-Avia on October 7, and other air carriers will do the remaining flights under programs with the airline, the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR) said in a statement.

VIM-Avia had delayed a large number of flights since 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. The accounts payable by VIM-Avia amount to about 10 billion rubles, of which 7 billion ruble debt is to banks, leasers and service providers.

“On Saturday, October 7, cooperation of tour operators with airline VIM-Avia will be terminated. The remaining flights will be performed by other carriers. VIM-Avia will stop carrying out all types of flights from October 15,” the ATOR said.

A source familiar with the matter that participated in meetings of the emergency center of the Transport Ministry told PRIME that tour operators sold tours with VIM-Avia flights to tourists without return tickets in violation of law.

“There is a tourism law that says that a tour operator must sell a package of documents with a return ticket to tourists. The plan is that a tour operator books a return ticket for a tourist with an airline, and the airline provides an electronic key to the tour operator to print the return ticket…VIM-Avia issued electronic keys for only one-way tickets under an order of its owner. Tour operators should have immediately notified prosecutors and authorities of the violation,” the source said.

VIM-Avia sold its tickets to tour operators for U.S. $70–90 per passenger, while other air carriers sold them for $120–150, but the tour operators did not decrease the cost of their packages.

“Tour operators knowingly violated the tourism law by having only one-way tickets for passengers. VIM-Avia had been using the scheme since the end of May,” the source said, adding that the Transport Ministry and the Federal Air Transport Agency became aware of that only after they had assembled the emergency center for the airline.

The Transport Ministry said in a statement that the airline has finished an active stage of passenger transportation, and the authorities agreed with other airlines on carrying VIM-Avia passengers to the Far East until October 28.

Sergei Izvolsky, adviser of the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency, told PRIME that 40 crew members of the troubled airline stranded in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia due to the failure of the air carrier to pay for their accommodation and return tickets timely, were brought back to Moscow.

Open Government Affairs Minister Mikhail Abyzov supported the idea of disbanding the community council of the Transport Ministry as the situation with VIM-Avia shows its inefficiency.

“The major function of the community council is to provide public control. If competent experts that are members of the council had reported on the situation to the management of the federal agency timely and had discussed it, we would possibly be able to avoid these negative consequences for citizens and for the sector in general,” he said as cited by the Open Government.

(57.7612 rubles – U.S. $1)

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