Airlines are waging a fierce battle for international air routes.
“The Ministry of Transport and Communications, as the central executive body responsible for coordinating state policy in transport, including air transportation, is not entitled to make statements that contradict current legislation, and at the same time not take measures to ensure compliance with legislation in the industry. By making biased statements against AeroSvit, neither the Ministry of Transport and Communications nor the State Aviation Service are doing anything to stop, for example, the non-competitive actions of the state airport ‘Dnipropetrovsk,’ which impedes charter flights of some Ukrainian airlines. Or the non-competitive actions of the airline ‘DonbassAero,’ which has monopolized the Donetsk – Kyiv route,” Interfax-Ukraine quotes the statement of AeroSvit’s press service.
The document states that on August 17, 2005, the Shevchenko District Court of Kyiv officially notified the State Service for Aviation Safety Oversight (State Aviation Service) that the execution of Order No. 510 of July 12, 2005, of the State Aviation Service, which permitted charter flights to Tel Aviv, had been suspended. This order, according to AeroSvit, “grossly violates the norm enshrined in the regulations on the use of Ukraine’s airspace (approved by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 401 of March 22, 2002).” “This norm directly requires coordination of irregular (charter) flights on certain air routes with designated carriers on those air routes,” the statement says.
The document notes that clause No. 4 of the protocol on additional maximum capacity of charter transportation of July 28, 2005, concluded during a meeting of the government delegations of Ukraine and Israel, reads: “Charter flights on the Tel Aviv – Kyiv routes are possible provided that the Ukrainian side undertakes to amend internal regulations by July 14, 2005.” This clause of the protocol has not been fulfilled to this day, AeroSvit’s press service reports. “Thus, the implementation of charter flights to Israel is hindered not by the airline AeroSvit, but by the current legislation of Ukraine and existing interstate agreements (including the Protocol, to which the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Ukraine refers in its statement),” the airline’s press service notes.
“AeroSvit is ready for a constructive dialogue on liberalizing the air transportation market, in which Ukrainian and foreign airlines will be granted equal access to both Ukrainian and foreign markets. Such changes to the rules should include a reasonable period of time for airlines to adapt to new conditions and re-plan their resources,” the statement says.
According to Korrespondent.net, at the end of June this year, an agreement was reached between the governments of Israel and Ukraine, under which airlines of each side may operate charter air transportation on the Tel Aviv – Kyiv route and in the reverse direction. Within the framework of this agreement, on July 12, 2005, the State Aviation Service issued DonbassAero permission to operate charter flights on this route.
In turn, on August 12, authorized representatives of AeroSvit, designated by the state as the air carrier on the Ukraine – Israel route, demanded that the State Aviation Service immediately cancel the illegally issued permits for charter flights to Tel Aviv from Kyiv and Odesa. In response, DonbassAero accused AeroSvit, the largest air carrier in Ukraine, of unfair competition in the operation of the Kyiv – Tel Aviv – Kyiv route. According to this company, AeroSvit, which was the only Ukrainian airline operating regular flights on this route, in every possible way impedes charter air transportation of other companies on this route. DonbassAero regards AeroSvit’s actions as “a manifestation of unfair competition and as contradicting the legal foundations for supporting and protecting economic competition in accordance with the law of Ukraine ‘On the Protection of Economic Competition.’”
From August 15, DonbassAero launched a flight Donetsk – Kyiv – Tel Aviv, ordered by the Israeli company Phoenix-Teufa. The flight is to be operated twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, on the airline’s new flagship aircraft, an Airbus A320.
_