11/08/2019 17:01

Pulkovo raised the bar

[IMG=18021-3417] From October Pulkovo airline has raised the charter flight fares by 10% and considerably raised the regular flight fares. ‘At the moment the difference in price for holiday flight to Prague between Pulkovo and Czech Airlines is only 60-70 Euros,’ specified Tamara Kheletskaya, the director of Solvex-Tourne. Traditional reference of airlines to growing fuel prices does not sound very convincing in the eyes of directors of travel companies. ‘This factor clearly affects the prices,’ says Valery Zhilkin, the director of ‘Central bureau of travels and excursions’, ‘but not to such an extent! We have never had a price increase even close to the recent 10% rise!’ Saint-Petersburg operators were greatly puzzled by the fact that the ‘unprecedented rise’, according to one of them, affected even the deposit flights. Tamara Khaletskaya told a BANKO journalist that when prices go up at the end of the season, ‘it works out at our expense because the deposits were paid and the prices were calculated in April’. As for winter, according to those interviewed by BANKO, the cost of airline tickets to Egypt, for example, was agreed in September, the sales are under way, and ‘we are forced to collect extra money from tourists, which harms the reputation of a travel company’. ‘Until now ski tour operators would buy packages of regular flights to Sofia. Now Pulkovo delivered an ultimatum to tour operators: ‘Either you cooperate and buy all the plane flights out or we cancel flights,’ said one of the experts who wished to stay anonymous. Many people believe the airline’s decision was linked with the recent news, which was broadcasted by some mass media, about serious financial problems of the Saint-Petersburg carrier. Allegedly, financial problems will reduce the number of planned flights and even cancel some charter line-ups. However, neither operators nor airline confirm the case. ‘Changes in our flight programs happen from year to year,’ announced Irina Nakolas, head of Pulkovo sales department. ‘In this case it is natural that they proceed from the change to the winter season when the passenger traffic, including the tourist traffic, decrease.’