Aeroflot refused to pay compensation to the widow of the deceased pilot

According to her, this amount was prescribed in the contract in the event of the death at work, but so far Aeroflot only helped with the transportation of the body and paid 15 thousand rubles.

The death of 49-year-old co-pilot Damir Akhmetov (pictured) occurred on November 24 last year during an Airbus 320 flight Moscow-Anapa. He felt bad and lost consciousness. The plane was urgently landed in Rostov-on-Don, but by that time the arriving emergency doctors could only ascertain the death in the air from a heart attack. Moreover, in less than six months, in June Damir Akhmetov passed the annual medical flight expert commission and was found fit for work. On the day of his death, he also underwent a preflight inspection and received permission to fly.

The meeting on the suit of the widow of the pilot scheduled for today in Omsk did not take place due to communication problems with representatives of Aeroflot, reports sibreal.org. Anastasia Akhmetova refers to a clause in the contract of the deceased spouse, according to which "in the event of the death of an employee or missing in the line of duty", - the employer must pay the family "10 annual earnings for the last year of work." In the case of Akhmetov, this amounts to 25 million 355 thousand rubles. The widow also demands nine million rubles from the airline as compensation for non-pecuniary damage - three million for each family member, including two minor children.

The lawyer of Anastasia Akhmetova, Vitaliy Kirichenko, claims that the pilot died precisely in the line of duty, but Aeroflot representatives believe otherwise. The letter, signed by Acting Deputy General Director for Legal and Property Affairs A. Melekhin, says that "this accident is not connected with the production", because "the only cause of death of Damir Akhmetov was his disease" and therefore the case was "uninsured". How then to explain the opposite conclusions of medical examinations is not clear.

Anastasia Akhmetova is also outraged not only by the meager “compensation” from the airline for 15 thousand “funeral” rubles, but also by the lack of even condolences on the occasion of the death of her employee at the workplace.

Thousands of passengers cannot return their money from Aeroflot. We are talking about tickets already purchased by them for flights canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Money is not returned to passengers despite multi-billion subsidies issued by the state to the carrier for damages. The airline refers to the law recently adopted by the State Duma, which makes it possible to compensate for the loss of passengers with an "equivalent".

After another reduction in flights in recent years, Aeroflot has lost its leading position in the transportation market - this airline was ahead of S7, which now performs almost one and a half times more flights.