Airlines are offered to award bonus miles for flight delays

As Kommersant learned, the All-Russian Association of Passengers proposed to the Ministry of Transport to recommend that all airlines reward passengers with bonus miles for delays caused by the carrier. Aeroflot launched a similar program on October 2. Airlines generally support the initiative. To make matters worse, the departure of provider SITA at the end of October could complicate the transfer of passenger data, especially on flights to China and the UAE. Rostec and other developers of replacement systems do not consider the problem critical and expect complete digitalization of data transmission in the coming months.

As Kommersant found out, the All-Russian Association of Passengers (PPA) proposed that the Ministry of Transport recommend that all Russian airlines award passengers bonus points (miles) when a flight is delayed due to the fault of the carrier. This compensation mechanism began working on October 2 for Aeroflot passengers with delays of two hours or more. The procedure and amount of incentives for passengers are proposed to be established at the discretion of a particular company, the PLO letter dated October 5 says.

Now airlines pay 25 rubles. for every hour of delay in delivery of a passenger or baggage, from April 1, 2024, the amount will increase to 100 rubles. at one o’clock. “The amount does not meet the passengers’ requests for adequate compensation,” the letter states. The miles initiative could help attract additional regular airline customers, PLO Chairman Ilya Zotov told Kommersant. “Today, infrequent flyers hardly sign up for loyalty programs, and earning points during delays can motivate them to become regular members of the program,” he added.

The airlines surveyed by Kommersant reacted positively to the initiative. The Red Wings indicated that “the corresponding program is in development and will be launched in the foreseeable future.” The airline’s current rules, it added, already include “compensatory mechanisms,” including issuing free flight certificates for serious delays. S7 noted that it was the first airline that, more than a year ago, began “automatically awarding miles to members of the S7 Priority loyalty program for waiting for flights.” Smartavia indicated that the current loyalty program offers special rates, discounts and “other conditions.”

The Ministry of Transport did not answer questions about how the statistics on flight delays in the Russian Federation have changed since the beginning of 2022.

One of Kommersant’s interlocutors in the expert community notes that delays due to the fault of the carrier are “rare or difficult to prove.” In particular, the most pressing reason now for delays and rescheduling of flights in the capital region is the announcement of the “Carpet” plan at UIA airports, which is beyond the control of airlines. He therefore considered it appropriate to extend the PLO proposal to cover any delays.

Considering the current variety of circumstances and causes of delays, the compensation mechanism in miles is relevant and promising, since it stimulates the growth of passenger traffic, notes the head of the Association of Air Transport Agencies, Dmitry Gorin. It is important that the tool is synchronized with other carriers “so that passengers do not lose connections due to a lack of codeshare agreements.” The expert objects to the idea of ​​also compensating for delays due to reasons beyond the carrier’s control: this will lead to an increase in ticket prices.

A new factor contributing to delays may be interruptions in the process of transmitting passenger data since the end of October after the final departure of the Swiss provider SITA from the Russian Federation. SITA began a gradual shutdown of services in 2022 simultaneously with the Western reservation systems Saber and Amadeus, after which Russian airlines switched to Russian Sirena-Travel and ORS. The integration of domestic solutions is carried out by the Federal State Unitary Enterprise of the Ministry of Transport “ZashchitaInfoTrans”, which has developed the “Aviation Service Platform”.

According to Kommersant’s interlocutors at three airlines, now standard data (passenger lists, passport information, information on fares and the amount of luggage) is transmitted to many foreign airports in the form of manually filled out files. The process doesn’t always happen seamlessly. “Something has to be sent several times, recipients change, sometimes problems arise with the sending itself,” problems are described in one of the companies and confirmed in others.

According to a Kommersant interlocutor close to the Ministry of Transport, in general, foreign counterparties are loyal to Russian methods of data transmission, but problems still persist at airports in China and the UAE. “In a number of cases, carriers had to install portable devices and routers on site, sometimes we are talking about data exchange manually, payments are sometimes transferred through partners in friendly countries: each situation is resolved individually, but we expect that in the coming months all processes will be automated,” he added. He called fears of large-scale disruptions “exaggerated.”

In matters of digitalization of data exchange, each of the domestic providers moves at its own speed, interaction with China is ongoing, noted ORS CEO Alexander Sizintsev. “Progress is already noticeable, Chinese colleagues have started working with us, and we expect that the process will be completed within a few months,” he added. In the UAE, the implementation of domestic systems is moving a little slower, but given the countries’ interest in maintaining passenger traffic, the expert suggested that the parties will reach “an understanding of how to automate loading.”

A source close to Rostec confirmed to Kommersant that after the departure of SITA, some airlines are experiencing certain inconveniences “related to the transfer of data to the immigration authorities of China and the UAE.” But there is nothing critical, he emphasized. According to him, now all processes are implemented in a semi-automatic mode, full automation is a matter of the near future. “It should be taken into account that the solution to the issue depends not only on our developers, but also on airlines and foreign partners,” he concluded. Rostec itself told Kommersant that “work to completely replace SITA channels with alternative ones is progressing at a good pace.” Now “a set of compensatory measures is being implemented”, thanks to which critical problems can be avoided, they emphasized.

Other companies have noticed that interaction with foreign airports is developing as usual. Azur Air does not expect disruptions in passenger service. “An updated data transfer mechanism has been configured and tested with all airports where we fly,” said the airline, which flies to Turkey, Egypt and Thailand. There are no noticeable problems at foreign airports, Red Wings added, where they emphasized that they had time to prepare to work with alternative software systems.

Lawyers believe that issues of proper operation of the booking system are the responsibility of the carrier. BGP Litigation Advisor Vladislav Rikov emphasizes that it is necessary to “take into account the reasons that led to the failure of the system and the ability of the airline to foresee or prevent them.” In judicial practice, causes of flight delays beyond the control of the carrier most often mean bad weather conditions, clarifies managing partner of the STEPS law firm Andrey Sharkov. He believes that in the event of data transmission failures, “the courts will side with passengers.” There is already judicial practice in which the courts did not recognize the failure of the reservation system as a basis for releasing the airline from liability, he notes. At the same time, the lawyer assumes that such proceedings will not be numerous.

Aigul Abdullina