Russian and Belarusian aviation authorities will negotiate changes in their bilateral agreement Thursday after a dispute stopped flights between the countries for several hours Tuesday.
Although details are still not clear, the conflict revolved around the number of frequencies on the Moscow-Minsk (MSQ) route. According to the agreement, the number of carriers on each side can be different but the number of frequencies should be equal.
Belavia Belarusian Airlines (B2) operates four flights a day between the cities while Russian Aeroflot (SU) had permission for three flights per day, and UTair (UT) for one flight. Several months ago, S7 Airlines received rights for one flight per day, starting from March 26.
In a statement, SU said that B2, before the start of the summer schedule, did not confirm the carrier’s third daily frequency, although the Russian airline has already started to sell tickets for these flights. According to several market experts, SU wanted to launch the fourth daily flight and B2 refused the request.
On March 26, Russian aviation authorities denied permission for B2 to operate the flights to Moscow. Later, Belarusian authorities decided the same for Russian carriers. The airlines had to postpone several Moscow-MSQ flights. Several hours later, they agreed to negotiate March 29 and recommenced the flights.
SU said that B2 received permission to fly from MSQ to more Russian cities, including St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Sochi, Ekaterinburg and Novosibirsk. B2 said the number of destinations and the number of Moscow-MSQ frequencies should be decided separately.
Article Source : ATW Daily News
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