Co-owner of Vnukovo: airlines should raise prices or close

Vitaly Vantsev, co-owner of Vnukovo airport, told RBC about this. He believes companies need to shut down. Or raise tariffs.

Against the backdrop of the pandemic crisis, passenger traffic at Vnukovo, the third largest airport in Russia, decreased by 48% to 12.6 million people. 46% of customers missed the airline and ended the year with maximum losses of over 130 billion rubles.

"Can you imagine the difficult economic situation the airlines are in? These are obvious things, there are laws of economics, it is absolutely pointless to argue with them - either you need to close or raise tariffs", - says Vitaly Vantsev.

At the same time, he is sure that it is necessary to raise tariffs "competently and carefully", otherwise, you can lose the load of flights.

For April-June 2021, an increase in the cost of tickets on certain routes from 15 to 120% was recorded. This follows from the data of online aggregators such as Aviasales, Tutu.ru, Kupibilet and OneTwoTrip. But the Ministry of Transport and airlines denied the rise in prices.

It's worth reminding that earlier, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed an order according to which Russians will receive money for travel tours abroad, paid by them until March 31, 2020 inclusive.

In July last year, the government approved a decree that allows airlines not to refund money for flights to their customers, but to issue vouchers instead.