“Closed sky”: how many airports have lost in six months of downtime

Ekaterina Maksimova

The regulator clarified that the government of the Russian Federation "in order to provide state support to airports, flights to which are temporarily limited, allocated 3.1 billion rubles." For half a year, the Federal Air Transport Agency twice reported on the distribution of subsidies.

In the first stage of payments (July 2022), 1.29 billion rubles were allocated to closed air harbors. The Federal Air Transport Agency clarified that this money is intended for partial reimbursement of operating expenses. And state support is provided "in order to preserve the infrastructure of airports and qualified personnel."

Almost the entire amount was then distributed among the southern hubs. Together they got more than 1.1 billion rubles. Thus, 436 million rubles were allocated to Simferopol, 296.9 million rubles to Rostov-on-Don, 259.2 million rubles to Krasnodar, 111.8 million rubles to Anapa, and 33.4 million rubles to Gelendzhik.

The other day, the Federal Air Transport Agency announced the completion of the second stage of selection of recipients of subsidies. And in the near future, according to the regulator, agreements on subsidies will be concluded with airports.

In total, more than 1.2 billion rubles were distributed between them. And this is how the billion of the second tranche was divided: Simferopol - 577.4 million rubles , Rostov-on-Don - 188.9 million rubles , Krasnodar - 189.9 million rubles , Anapa - 117.1 million rubles , Gelendzhik - 71 million rubles , Belgorod - 39 million rubles , Bryansk - 10.5 million rubles , Voronezh - 50.8 million rubles , Kursk - 2.9 million rubles , Lipetsk - 8.1 million rubles , Elista - 7 million rubles .

Accordingly, in the southern direction, subsidies decreased near Rostov-on-Don and Krasnodar, increased slightly near Anapa, and noticeably “grew up” near Simferopol and Gelendzhik.

flew by

One of the telegram channels reacted to the decision of the Federal Air Transport Agency with the following message: “This is catastrophically insufficient <...> due to downtime, airports receive less than 63 million rubles in revenue per day. This is more than 11 billion since the stoppage of flights.”

The incorrectness of such calculations will surely drive the financiers crazy, but the logic is clear. Especially if you look at the forecast plans of airports for 2022. Novye Izvestia studied the documents of the aviators.

Revenues of the Rostov Platov Airport (launched in 2017) in 2022 were projected at 5.3 billion rubles , net profit of 1.7 billion rubles. The forecast figures for Krasnodar Airport for the current year are as follows: revenues of 3.9 billion rubles , net profit of 950 million rubles. Gelendzhik predicted an income of 517.1 million rubles and a loss of 326 million rubles. The port of Anapa expected to end the year with a net profit of 321 million rubles with an income of 1.4 billion rubles.

Forecast of the Belgorod port - 615, 3 million income and a loss of more than 84 million rubles. By the way, last year Belgorod residents reduced their losses (according to RAS) by five times (to 12 million rubles against 62.8 million rubles in 2020). The plans of the air harbor of Simferopol, which last year increased its net profit by 3 times (4.1 billion rubles), can also be safely thrown into the basket.

One can go on, but the numbers even for several airports are enough to estimate the scale of the “airport disaster”. But no one promised to reimburse the ports for income from their core activities. Enough for at least "partial reimbursement of operating costs in order to preserve the infrastructure of airports and qualified personnel."

A source in the Federal Air Transport Agency, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the representatives of the ports in their applications for subsidies include the minimum - only the necessary current expenses. “Everyone's situation is different. Each figure is confirmed by the operator,” the source added.

Anatoly Lapin , an expert in the field of air navigation, honored navigator of Russia, agrees that the situation in ports varies and believes that it is impossible to assess the needs and the current state of closed harbors.

“Only the airport operator knows the exact amount of downtime per day. And everyone will have their own amounts. The number of staff is different for everyone, the degree of integration of automation, too. And the scope of work that is carried out even in the closed sky mode will absolutely differ for everyone. Take, for example, Kursk. There, the airport is completely closed, there are only shifts on duty that maintain maintenance facilities. What exactly should be in working order for everyone is route navigation aids,” commented Anatoly Lapin.

Representatives of the airports interviewed by Novye Izvestiya refuse to make official comments. Unofficially, all interlocutors only confirmed that federal subsidies have not yet reached the recipients: budget procedures take time. But in general, the high-margin airport business still allows us to keep the ports in working condition. Here are just port workers during the period of forced downtime receive ⅔ of their wages.