11/08/2019 16:38

Intourist + Megapolus-Aviacharter

[IMG=18868-4510] Travel market players actively discuss the partnership deal between Intourist and Megapolus-Aviacharter (News/ 20.01). Experts divide opinions regarding that what attracted Intourist in a consolidating company of UTE. Was it the potential of Intourist co-owner Mikhail Shamanov? For certain. Or was it the volume of charter flights and profitability of the company? Probably. Nevertheless, there is one more version: owners of Intourist have bought 50% of shares of Megaulus-Aviacharter partly because the deal will allow the company to enter air business. According to Shamanov, for a year he has been working on the project of import of Boeings into Russia: ‘British leasing companies are involved. Aircrafts are planed to be exploited under a flag of a national carrier company Interavia. To be honest, being in alliance with Interavia, I will be able to compete with large carrier companies which boost prices at the moment. With our own aircraft resource we will offer flights at reasonable prices’. Interavia airline fleet mainly consists of Il-62 aircrafts which makes it difficult for the company to compete in charter sphere. Therefore, an alliance with a strong consolidating company, which merged with financial corporation Sistema (System) through Intourist, is one of the ways to maintain its positions and to expand. While, for Sistema aviation is a good investment medium. However, unconcerned experts consider the project of Shamanov to be too ambitious and hard-to-move: ‘At the best case the project will be realized next year’. Among the reasons they point out the lack of production facilities for Boeings exploitation. There are even no pilots of the necessary qualification. ‘We plan to attract pilots from Uzbek Airlines as they have experience with foreign aircrafts. Besides, Interavia has good relations with the company’, stated Shamanov. Boris Shokurov, a well-known expert on the air market, who was involved into flight performance of VIM-Avia, explained: ‘It only seems easy. We also tried to attract people from Uzbekistan but faced difficulties with the labor legislation, which is observed rigidly in the aviation sphere’.