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A Window to Europe Closes for St. Petersburg
// Pulkovo Airlines May End Up on EU's Blacklist
A scandal is engulfing the government-owned St. Petersburg airline Pulkovo. On Friday, the Interfax news agency announced that the European Union may put the airline on its "blacklist" of airline companies that are not allowed to fly to Europe. The reason for the possible decision has so far not been discussed. Some in the market are suggesting that the EU's threats may be a lever for exerting political pressure on Russia in connection with the question of lifting fees that are currently leveled against foreign airlines that fly across Siberia.
The news agency reported that EU representatives will meet on October 4 to update the list of airlines that are not allowed to fly to Europe, and they will apparently also discuss including the St. Petersburg airline Pulkovo on that list. The Transport Ministry's press service said that the ministry had not received any official documents from the Europeans concerning the Pulkovo matter and refused to "comment on rumors." A source close to the ministry, however, told Kommersant that EU Transport Commission Jacques Barro verbally informed Russian officials about the possible action against Pulkovo at a meeting of Russian and European transport officials in Finland on September 8. Pulkovo Airlines refused to comment publicly on the matter, but a source in the company told Kommersant that the airline is "already informed" of the possibility that it will be placed on the EU's blacklist. European officials declined to comment.
The current list, published in March of this year, includes 92 airlines and was last approved by the European parliament in November 2005. Most of the airlines on the list are African carriers, but the list also includes two Kazakh airlines and one Kyrgyz carrier. If Pulkovo is placed on the list, the company will face substantial losses in revenue. The company has projected earnings of $600 million for 2006, 70% of which comes from international routes. It will also be difficult for the airline to reorient its services away from Europe: most of its fleet consists of short- and medium-haul planes whose range restricts them to flights within Russia, the CIS countries, and Europe.
The reasons for such severe sanctions, which have never before been implemented against a large Russian carrier, remain unclear. Some in the market believe that the EU's action is a response to the recent crash of a Pulkovo TU-154 plane outside Donetsk, Ukraine, that killed everyone aboard, including a Dutch citizen and two Russians with dual citizenship – one French, the other Finnish. However, a month before that an A310 plane belonging to the company Sibir crashed on landing in Irkutsk, and no one seems to be discussing the fate of that airline. What is more, the investigation into the causes of the TU-154 crash is far from being complete. Pulkovo Airlines admits that its technical servicing norms and procedures for its aircraft "occasionally draw complaints from European airports," but the carrier's representatives maintain that "none of them have been extremely critical."
Depending on the source in question, the EU's threats could also amount to a means of unfair competition either from foreign carriers or from Russian airlines. Pulkovo competes on the international market in northwestern Russian exclusively with foreign airlines, and some in the market and in the company itself believe that the blacklist threat is nothing but a ploy to increase the fortunes of international carriers on the routes between St. Petersburg and Europe. Other experts believe, however, that bad press for Pulkovo will intensify competition between the company and Russian airlines such as Transaero and Aeroflot, which have been talking lately of expanding their services to St. Petersburg. "Pay attention to the fact that most of the rumors concerning the EU putting Pulkovo on its blacklist are being disseminated chiefly by the Transport Ministry," said a market source.
The most widespread explanation for the EU's possible sanctions against Pulkovo is that it is a politically-motivated attempt to blackmail Russia. According to this version, the move to put Pulkovo on the blacklist can be averted if the Russian authorities remove the surcharge leveled on international carriers, mostly European airlines, that fly across Siberia. The fee amounts to $200-300 million per year. The last time the issue was discussed, at the talks in Finland at the beginning of September, Russia refused a proposal that the fees be gradually lessened to a complete phase-out by 2014, and it was right around this time that the threats against Pulkovo arose.
Sergey Ryzhkin and Maria Mokeicheva (St. Petersburg), Konstantin Benyumov
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 18, 2006
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