Vladivostok airport joins open skies
A unique for Russia open skies policy was introduced in the airport of Vladivostok. Now any foreign carrier can land there, regardless of the agreements the carrier’s country has with Russia. First of all, it’s interesting for the Chinese, who will be able to work around their own limitations on direct flights to USA. In practice, most of the landings will be for refueling, but foreign carriers will be allowed to accept Russian passengers onboard. Russian companies, on the other hand, will be able to get additional flights to countries, which will use the open skies regime. These steps will help raise additional income, which should compensate for the reconstruction of the airport that cost the State about $1 billion.
The decision about lifting all barriers in Vladivostok airport for transit flights by international carriers was enforced by Mintrans. It was made official on 3 November by a letter from the head of the department of State policy in civilian aviation of Mintrans Vladimir Tasun to the general manager of Vladivostok international airport Maxim Chetverikov. The clerk urged the top-manager to “start working with foreign carriers, interested in flights through Vladivostok, and to spread this information among them”.
It took less than half a year for Mintrans to come up with such an unprecedented solution for the Russian aviation market. Before now, foreign carriers could land in Russian airports only after State officials on both sides signed all the necessary international agreements. And during refueling landings, foreign planes could not load/unload passengers and cargo. The fifth grade of freedom (out of a total of 7 grades), which was mentioned in the Mintrans’s letter, means that carriers can perform any kind of operation during their refueling landings, including taking passengers onboard and deplaning them.
The whole idea of introducing the open skies policy is credit to Mikhail Vasilenko, general manager of Sheremetyevo international airport. He has been in charge of the Vladivostok international since 2008, when President Dmitry Medvedev delegated the control stake of the airport to Sheremetyevo in order to make the Vladivostok airport ready for the 2012 APEC summit, which will take place in September. Since then the government invested about 12 billion roubles in the project – money was spent on reconstruction of the airport complex, runways, and parking ramps. Sheremetyevo on their side invested 6 billion roubles into construction of a new passenger terminal. Also Russian Railways will spend about 8 billion roubles to make a new train-line from the city to the airport. During summer 2011 Mikhail Vasilenko said that the only way to cover such expenses is to create an international hub, and thus adopt the open skies policy. He then said that the project was presented to Dmitry Medvedev, and the president approved of it.
The press service of Sheremetyevo says that the open skies policy will allow transit passenger flow to grow at a rate of 1-5 million passengers a year. In 2010 the airport served 1.2 million passengers and was #13 in Russia. “The Seoul airport, located some 600 km from Vladivostok international, managed to double their passenger flow (from 18 to 36 million) and raise the quantity of transit passengers from 5 million to 28 million people, all in a 10-year period after adopting the open skies policy”, - said the press service representative. According to him, “Chinese, Australian and American carriers” already expressed their interest in transit flights via Vladivostok international.
Boris Rybak, head of Infomost consulting company, explains that open skies policy with the fifth grade of freedom is usually used by airlines to avoid bilateral aviation agreements in between countries. These agreements regulate which carriers can land in certain cities and how often they can do that. “China, Hong Kong, Korea and South-East Asia countries have very liberal agreements with Europe, yet they have serious restrictions towards USA”, - notes the expert. Vladivostok airport might be a way to work around these restrictions. For that to happen, China will have to sign a codesharing agreement with one of the American companies, concerning flights to USA from Vladivostok. And after that they will fly under their own code to Vladivostok, and then under their partner’s code on to USA. Thus it will be almost like a direct flight, which would be otherwise prohibited by agreements between the two countries. In reality, the landing in Vladivostok will just be a formality, explains Boris Rybak, but the airport will have some income from that and some Russian passengers will be able to board the flight.
Flights like that could be arranged by Russian airlines as well, if Vladivostok became a big hub. But they are limited by the agreements between Russia and other countries like China and USA. Thus, the decision by Mintrans was received with disappointment by Russian carriers.
Kommersant quotes one of the Russian airlines, which referred to the open skies policy as “national sabotage”. The airline representative is cautious that foreign companies will not only receive new business opportunities, but will also take a piece of the pie from Russian carriers. For instance, “Vladivostok Avia” and S7 transfer passengers to transit airports on their way to Australia and other countries. But the Mintrans representative assured that authorities will look into obtaining higher direct flight frequencies for domestic airlines in exchange for introducing open skies policy. “We’re not going to just give away Vladivostok for transit”, - he says. Thus the new policy will still be permissive in nature, but more liberal then intergovernmental agreements.
Oleg Panteleev, head of analytics department of Aviaport Company, believes that Russian airlines have nothing to be afraid of: the only carrier, which is developing passenger traffic in Vladivostok, is “Vladivostok Avia”, and it is the only company, that might be affected by the new rules. “Aeroflot”, the official owner of forenamed airline, did not give any comment.
The expert also says that the new policy is really opening new horizons for the airport. But the fifth grade of freedom alone is not enough, explains Oleg Panteleev. Vladivostok will have to compete with other regional hubs in China and Korea, for instance. “A lot will depend on the quality of services and overall conditions the airport will have to offer to foreign carriers”, - concluded the expert.