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««At the moment there are a lot of flights to the Canary Islands, but soon they will be reduced starting from the 25th of November’, said Olga Kozhina, financial director of ‘Soltour este’. Staring from this date, instead of 4 weekly flights to Tenerife there will be only 3 planes, from the 9th of December up till the 24th of March of the next year only two long chains are expected to be kept excluding additional New Year’s flights. As representatives of operating firms told the reduction is pre-planned: as in previous years main consolidators of the destination chose to coordinate the volumes agreeing to cancel flight of their charters one after another. Alexander Skalin, a general director of ‘Vremya tour’ explained the situation this way: ‘When there were 4 planes to Tenerife, there were dates when tickets cost $250 while the prime cost was $450. In November three planes is enough, further two will be enough for the market’. Tatiana Chuvilkina, deputy general director of ‘Natalie tours’ agrees with him, she noticed that because of high prices for air tickets, Canary becomes a risky destination. ‘Meanwhile, the main participants are long established partners; we hold negotiations which will allow making the market more stable. No one wants to loose money’, explained Tatiana Chuvilkina.
Meanwhile, the stability of the Canaries as a tourist destination has a reverse side: attempts of the Moscow operators to increase the tourist flow or open a new niche was not yet successive. This can be seen on the example of another island –archipelago – Grand Canaria. During past several years a direct charter flight Moscow-Canary was made at least twice a year but every time initiators balancing ‘for’ and ‘against’ would restrain the ambitions. ‘The cost which we received for the regular flight make it more attractive compared to the charter. Prices are either equal or have a difference of 15%. Besides the potential of blocks was not enough to stand the weekly risks and take up obligations to load more than 10 seats on a plane. Perhaps the market has not yet ripped for grand-Canary, it needs additional promotion’, shared her opinion Kseniya Ogienko, director of tourism UTE Megapolus Group, the company (more precisely ‘Megapolus Aviacharter’ included in UTE holding) past summer actively promoted the market of the direct charter to Grand-Canary.
