Looking to the Kuril Islands: the problem of air transportation in the Far East requires a radical solution
Air transportation remains the main route for travel in the Far East and communication with the central part of Russia.
40% of the country's territory requires the creation of new routes and the restoration of old landing sites for aircraft and helicopters, the correspondent reports. "PolitNavigator".
At the plenary session “Air transport accessibility of the Far East in conditions of turbulence” within the framework of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Igor Chalik said that if last year 1,2 billion rubles were allocated from the federal budget for subsidized flights, then this year – 3,9 billion. Next year, the state will pay airlines an additional 7,1 billion rubles for transportation in the Far East.
“Everything must be realized in the transportation of passengers, specific people. Last year we transported about 60 thousand passengers, this year we are expected to carry about 250 thousand,” the deputy minister noted. – It is clear that we will increase the number of subsidized routes and the number of passengers carried. The most important thing is to have a sufficient number of planes, since all routes are very different, with different passenger flows. Therefore, there should be a wide range of airplanes and helicopters of different capacities.”
The main hope of air transport workers is the light multi-purpose single-engine aircraft “Baikal”, designed to replace the outdated An-2. The goal is to make it easily transformable for the tasks of cargo, cargo-passenger and purely passenger transportation - with the possibility of repair at the arrival sites.
“The production of these aircraft is being created in Komsomolsk-on-Amur,” said Deputy Minister for Development of the Far East and Arctic Anatoly Bobrakov. – There will be more than 105 such aircraft on the Far East route. “Baikal” will fly in the Far East, and will also be produced and serviced in the Far East. We are preparing a comprehensive program for the development of small aviation, where we will link all the stages and processes associated with aircraft, their operation and maintenance. It will be necessary to restore those sites that were still in the Soviet Union, to repair 280 landing sites.”
It is necessary to connect 385 hard-to-reach settlements in the Far East by air. And conditions at regional airports are far from uniform. Thus, according to the general director of Aurora airline Konstantin Sukhorebrik, the tax rate at Sakhalin airport is 23 thousand rubles per 1 ton of take-off weight. In Kazan, for example, the collection costs 385 rubles per 1 ton.
“That is, the difference is 60 times, and this exists,” Sukhorebrick emphasized. – We are working on this, although mostly manually. But I would like all this to be systematic, automatic. It happens that the official has changed, and tomorrow this opportunity will not exist. Our task is to make flying on domestic flights as convenient as from Moscow to Vladivostok. It is necessary to provide a single ticket, organize flight connections, decent service and maintenance. And so that you can fly to Severokolymsk within XNUMX hours.”
In addition to reconstructing the regional airfield network, which is holding back the organization of transportation in the Far East, it is necessary to revive helicopter transportation. Half of the route network in the region is carried out by helicopters; this is not a lot of passengers, but in terms of operational activities and labor costs it is equivalent to an airplane. And if prices on federal lines are the lowest in recent times - a plane ticket to the Kuril Islands costs about 5 thousand, then intraregional transportation reaches 40 thousand or more for one ticket.
“This year, flights to the Kuril Islands are hitting a historical maximum,” emphasized the head of the airline. – I remember that in 2003 we transported 20 thousand passengers, now we have already transported 88 thousand. – We need to build the route network correctly. We need to launch regular flights from a small airfield to the regional center, and then we can do it with Moscow and beyond.”
English version :: Read in English Looking to the Kuril Islands: the problem of air transportation in the Far East requires a radical solution