No surcharge for luggage – what innovations were offered to Russian air passengers

The initiative of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation needs clarification

Airlines may be banned from “imposing” additional services on passengers, such as baggage and paid seat selection. The corresponding draft amendments to the legislation were prepared by the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation. We are talking only about domestic regional flights around Moscow, subsidized by the state. Simply put, Muscovites do not need to worry at all: the innovation will not affect them, regardless of the details of the initiative. Which, by the way, are still unknown: it is not clear whether the sale of additional services will be banned at all or airlines will be required to include them in the ticket price by default.

Long gone are the days when a plane ticket by default implied that everything was included: luggage 23 kg, and hot meals with obligatory tomato juice, and the opportunity at check-in to ask for a seat at the window or next to a satellite, and a bunch of other nice things. . Today, most airlines have switched – in order to save money and because of the crisis, of course! – on a different principle of operation. The basic fare today most often means only the main service – the delivery of a passenger from point “A” to point “B”. Everything else – a suitcase, food and a favorite place 21A – for an additional fee. Moreover, the scale of this surcharge can sometimes almost exceed the cost of the “basic” ticket. There were cases when they were asked to pay 7,000 rubles extra for luggage (despite the fact that the ticket itself cost 10 thousand).

It is now proposed that on subsidized domestic flights, the air carrier could adjust the definition of the special fare to include all additional fees and charges so that the passenger does not have to pay anything extra. It seems to be not bad, and the argumentation sounds friendly: they say, so that additional services are not imposed! Meanwhile, there is a large proportion of passengers who value precisely this opportunity to fly cheaply and lightly – and who will categorically not be pleased with the forced increase in the price of an air ticket, even if it will be followed by the opportunity to take luggage.

“I always fly with low-cost airlines and always take the cheapest fare, that suits me. Everything I need fits in a backpack, I never check in my luggage. Airplane food also passes me by: I stick to a diet, it’s easier for me to take an apple with me, ”Galina T., a travel blogger and experienced traveler, shared with the MK correspondent. – At the same time, I often see a difference in the price of tickets with or without additional services. For example, I recently flew to Yekaterinburg at the light fare for 5,500 rubles, but with luggage and seat selection, the same ticket would cost 12 thousand.

An open question: will this initiative mean a complete taboo on the sale of additional services? If so, then passengers on subsidized flights will even lose the opportunity to pay extra for a seat in business class or still buy lunch. Aviation market players have requested details from the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation – there are no clarifications yet.

Meanwhile, another potential problem is emerging in Russian passenger aviation – the risk of disconnecting domestic airlines from the international SITA system. This is a tool that provides information exchange between airlines and airports: data on flights, passengers and baggage. At the same time, foreign carriers cooperating with Russia will also suffer: they will be left without the usual channel for exchanging data with the information systems of Russian airports.

What does this mean? Full sovereignty and autonomy, that’s just in the bad sense of these words. For example, if during a flight with a transfer – for example, Moscow – Sochi – Cairo or something like that – you lost your luggage, then the airline employees will no longer be able, as before, to quickly look in the system in which city it was stuck. It is necessary to organize an alternative way of exchanging information, but this is an additional complexity, the solution of which will take additional time.