FEDERAL AIR TRANSPORT AGENCY IS READY TO OPEN THE BORDERS WITH 15 COUNTRIES

The Federal Air Transport Agency intends to offer the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumers Protection to resume flights between Russia and some countries. It is very possible that flights will be resumed on 15 July.

The Federal Air Transport Agency and the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumers Protection will determine the list of countries with which the air communication might be resumed - the idea of ​​opening the borders for some cities appeared at a meeting in the Federal Air Transport Agency.

During the meeting, it became known that the short-term plans of the departments include the resumption of flights to all countries of the world for the business partnership purposes.

The meeting was attended by the representatives of major Russian airlines. We should recall that in late March, Russia closed all the air borders in order to combat the spread of coronavirus. It started on 1 February, when Russia began to cancel the flights to China, South Korea, Iran and other countries. Further, when the virus reached Europe, the Russian Federation limited the air communication with Italy, Spain, France and Germany. The further scenario was even worse - the infection spread all over Europe, and on 23 March, the air communication of the Russian Federation with 95 countries was suspended. On 27 March, the borders of Russia were completely closed.

According to the estimates of the Russian airlines, the number of passengers decreased by 91.8% in April - in numerical terms, this is about 770 thousand people.

The difficulties with air communication affected the summer season. It is known that 20% of Russians postponed their planned vacation. According to the survey, 30% of respondents lost the trips abroad, 25% of respondents refused to travel even within the country, 20% decided to skip this season and not break away from work. There are those who simply postpone the vacation dates, around 12%.

Many of the respondents noted that the change in their plans was influenced not so much by the virus as by the financial difficulties that arose due to the pandemic.

It is worth noting that the results of the survey are not that sad, if we recall the data of September 2019. Last year, only 8% of Russians were able to spend their holidays abroad, another 33% stayed at home, 27% rested on their garden plots and 11% preferred tourism within Russia.