Airlines do not have enough for a ticket – Newspaper Kommersant No. 48 (7493) of 03/22/2023
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According to Kommersant, passengers are asking the Ministry of Transport to extend the vouchers expiring in the spring for flights canceled due to the pandemic or to provide carriers with money from the budget for a refund. The delay lasted three years, and now, having received the right to return with interest, many still cannot get money. According to various estimates, airlines will have to return funds for tickets of 10-100 thousand passengers. The initiative was supported by Aeroflot and tour operators, whose debt to citizens is estimated at 1.5-10 billion rubles. For airlines, according to Kommersant’s sources, the amount may be comparable or higher.
As it became known to Kommersant, the All-Russian Association of Passengers turned to the head of the Ministry of Transport, Vitaly Savelyev, with a request to solve the problem of unused vouchers for flights canceled during the pandemic.
According to government decree No. 991 of July 6, 2020, vouchers were valid for three years, during which the passenger could use them to buy a new ticket. At the end of the term, airlines must return the money with interest at the rate of the Central Bank. But, according to the association’s letter dated March 20, “passengers cannot return money for an unused voucher from Russian airlines and cannot use the voucher to purchase tickets, since the period has expired.” The association suggested that the Ministry of Transport extend the vouchers or solve the problem with the return of money. “We understand that airlines do not have the means to completely close the issue on all passenger tickets,” the letter says. The Association proposed to provide targeted assistance to airlines from the budget.
The head of the organization, Ilya Zotov, confirmed to Kommersant that the letter was sent, noting that “the preferred amount of possible state support will be determined by the Public Chamber after consultations with the airlines.” According to him, preliminary we can talk about more than 10 thousand passengers with expired vouchers. According to a Kommersant source close to the Ministry of Transport, “this figure is ten times higher” and companies must return the money for at least 100,000 tickets. The Ministry of Transport “Kommersant” did not answer.
The owners “could not or did not want to” use the vouchers on time for various reasons, says Mr. Zotov: “Some were not satisfied with the proposed route network, others found it difficult to issue all the vouchers issued for the family with a new “single” ticket, and others wanted to wait for the money” . Without naming the companies, he clarified that passengers cannot receive a response to their requests after appropriate requests.
Aeroflot announced in June 2020 that it had issued 100 thousand applications for vouchers, but then did not report on their redemption. A Kommersant source in a top 15 company believes that in reality the number of reissued certificates at Aeroflot was much higher, since “a carrier with a significantly lower passenger traffic issued more than 55,000 vouchers.”
The largest player to return funds or pay off obligations, the interlocutor of Kommersant believes, did not work out for technical reasons: “The company wanted to return the money proactively in order to avoid interest, but customers did not submit applications, and transfer funds to the card details specified during the purchase, was impossible.”
The only company that claimed to have fulfilled all obligations to passengers was Pobeda. Until July 2021, according to its own data, it transferred almost 1 billion rubles to customers, and another 1.5 billion rubles. passengers “flew off” on vouchers.
Aeroflot did not comment on the number of remaining vouchers: “The company fully refunds passengers and pays interest on unused tickets.” The proposal to amend the resolution in Aeroflot, despite this, was supported: “First of all, the extension of the validity of vouchers will be convenient for passengers.” According to Aeroflot statistics, the majority of vouchers are used to purchase air tickets. Therefore, it is important that when extending the terms, the client will be able to choose whether to receive money or issue an air ticket, they added.
Ural Airlines declined to discuss the number of issued certificates, but confirmed that the amount of funds to be returned to passengers is a “substantial amount.” They stressed that there were no cases of refusal to repay the debt in the company. S7, Utair and other major companies declined to comment. An interlocutor at one of the top 5 companies emphasized that “compensation would be highly appropriate given the industry’s pandemic losses.”
The debts of tour operators for trips that did not take place due to covid currently amount to 1.5-5 billion rubles. with an initial amount of 44 billion rubles, they say in the Russian Union of Travel Industry (PCT). According to other sources of Kommersant’s interlocutors in the market, the amount reaches 7-10 billion rubles. The delay for the return of funds has already ended here, and tour operators have been refused to extend it for 2023.
Extending vouchers would be a very appropriate solution to the problem, since air transportation is an integral part of the tour package, says Dmitry Gorin, vice president of the PCT. According to him, debts in tourism were formed due to difficulties in offering an alternative equivalent product. After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, the situation worsened. At the same time, tour operators paid part of the funds back in 2020 to hotels, suppliers, including foreign carriers. In this regard, state support for business remains more than relevant, says Mr. Gorin.
If the voucher has expired and the carrier is delaying the refund, lawyers recommend going to court. But there has not been a stable practice on this issue, says Nikolay Titov, co-founder of atLegal. At the same time, Yegor Filin, a lawyer for Yagupov & Partners, says that the Supreme Court “very clearly demonstrated solidarity with the executive branch” in a precedent decision in October 2020, refusing to satisfy the claims of the plaintiff who demanded a refund during the validity period of the voucher. The situation, according to him, may change depending on the current position of the government: “If the validity of vouchers is not renewed, then the probability of achieving a favorable result for the consumer in court is extremely high.”
The delay in the return of funds was intended to protect, first of all, air carriers from massive one-time expenses and, as a result, possible bankruptcy, says Galina Gamburg, head of the practice of property and liability relations at Amulex.ru. She clarified that the government decree refers to Art. 107.2 of the Air Code, which gives the carrier the right, in the event of a threat of emergency situations, to unilaterally change the conditions or refuse the service, returning the fee within the time limits set by the government, which can be extended.
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