The trade union of air navigation workers asked Vladimir Putin for help

The Trade Union of Aviation Workers of Radar, Radio Navigation and Communications of Russia (PARRIS) wrote a letter to President Vladimir Putin on August 29 asking him to pay attention to the plight of industry specialists, which threatens to stop air navigation services. Vedomosti got acquainted with a copy of the document.

PARRIS is asking for help due to the risks of non-payment of salaries to employees of the State Air Traffic Management Corporation (SC ATM) already at the end of September. This was announced in a letter to the directors of the branches of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise on August 29 and. about. Vladimir Gulchenko, General Director of the ATM Group of Companies. Vedomosti also has a copy of this document, its authenticity was confirmed by Alexei Yuzhakov, chairman of PARRIS. Gulchenko was the first to write about the appeal on the Aviatorschina Telegram channel.

In mid-August, the Ministry of Transport published a project to bring the Federal State Unitary Enterprise out of the crisis with the help of a subsidy of 13.9 billion rubles. and an increase in rates for air navigation services by 30% (Vedomosti wrote about this on August 18). But, as Gulchenko points out in the letter, there is no document approving the decision to allocate funds to the ATM Civil Code. In connection with this and about. the CEO asks to stop all payments, except for the payment of wages, taxes and other “critical payments” until further sources of funding for the ATM GC are determined.

The salaries of certain categories of workers in the Moscow division of the Civil Code for ATM have already decreased by almost 45%, Yuzhakov told Vedomosti. He did not detail how wages were reduced, only mentioning that bonuses were “cut”. The reduction in the salary of part of the employees of the Civil Code for ATM was also due to their transfer to simple or part-time work “to save the wage fund” (Vedomosti wrote about this on August 16).

The enterprise is also carrying out massive staff reductions – in 2022 alone, about 1,300 employees quit, according to a letter from the trade union to Putin. Earlier, the Federal Trade Union of Air Traffic Controllers (FPAD) reported that half of the personnel of the ATM Civil Code were sent to “partial downtime”.

The risk of non-payment of salaries to employees of the State Committee for ATM in September was reported by PARRIS back in July in a letter to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Then, as a support measure, the trade union proposed to allow transit flights through Russian airspace for all foreign companies, cancel the reduction factor for air navigation services (ANS) tariffs in the Far East, and also consider the possibility of deferred payments under capital investment agreements.

On August 2, the Ministry of Transport replied to the trade union that it was “working through the issue” of providing subsidies and raising rates for ANOs.

According to PARRIS, the actions of the Federal Air Transport Agency, which is in charge of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise, led to the current situation of the ATM Civil Code. “Rosaviatsia itself has created a financial model in which tariffs for ANOs have not been indexed for more than 10 years,” the trade union organization wrote in a letter to the president.

PARRIS is also dissatisfied with the fact that, given the crisis situation, the State Air Traffic Control Committee of the Russian Airways is “persistently forcing” the Federal State Unitary Enterprise to make capital investments of “tens of billions of rubles” in enterprises producing radio-technical flight support equipment. Vedomosti sent inquiries to the Ministry of Transport and the Federal Air Transport Agency.

A representative of the ATM Group of Companies told Vedomosti that the company’s management is acting in accordance with labor laws. “All payments stipulated by the employment contracts will be made to the employees of the enterprise within the prescribed period. There are no decisions on delay or non-payment of wages,” the interlocutor emphasized.

The Russian air navigation services provider, the ATM Group, faced financial problems in 2020 due to the massive reduction in flights due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then the state corporation lost up to 60% of its income, but was able to cover the losses at the expense of previously accumulated funds – in 2019 this amount was 83.4 billion rubles. By the beginning of this year, the company’s cash reserves had dried up by more than half, and the Ministry of Transport predicted that the remaining amount would be completely exhausted by October 2022. According to the ministry, the state corporation’s cash gap will be 25 billion rubles.

The main source of income – about 70% – of the state corporation was fees for ANOs of foreign airlines, since the tariffs for them were 10 times higher than for domestic ones. After the start of a special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine in February 2022, the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Japan and EU countries closed their skies to domestic air carriers, Russia introduced retaliatory measures. Russian airlines could only fly to 11 countries, Transport Minister Vitaly Savelyev said in June.

Nevertheless, air traffic volumes are approaching pre-crisis levels. According to the Ministry of Transport, in January-July 2022, Russian airlines carried more than 51 million passengers on domestic and international routes, which is almost 90% of the same period last year. The cost of air tickets, according to the agency, decreased by 10% from May to August. ANO fees in the total cost of a plane ticket in Russia are now less than 1%.

Transport analyst Elena Sakhnova believes that the lack of a documented decision on assistance from the ATM Civil Code is due solely to “technical issues”. “This is a state-owned enterprise that is guaranteed to receive assistance,” Sakhnova is sure. The problem with possible non-payment of wages, according to the expert, will be resolved in the near future. According to her, the difficult financial situation of the State Committee for ATM is directly related to the decline in international air traffic against the backdrop of sanctions.

HSE expert Fyodor Borisov previously told Vedomosti that for the financial stability of the company, it is necessary not only to increase the company’s income, but also to reduce costs, including by expanding the number of zones and airports with low flight intensity without air traffic control.