VIM Avia situation – anti-crisis measures

Vipservice is a federal company engaged in solving the global problems of the travel industry. We always protect the aviation industry and ensure the complete fulfillment of obligations to the passengers. 

Vipservice Holding is actively participating in the solving of the problem of VIM Avia passengers transportation, which announced at the end of September the discontinuation of all charter flights due to the financial problems. As of September 26, there were 40,500 tourists in total who bought VIM Avia tickets.

Dmitry Gorin, Advisor to the Head of the Federal Agency for Tourism and Vipservice's Chief Executive Officer, being a member of the crisis center of the Ministry of Transport for the arrangement of passenger transportation, participates on a daily basis twice a day in the development of suggestions on transportation of the tourists back home and on state regulation of the aviation industry.

"We have established a good interaction between the transport and travel industries, which has allowed fulfilling all obligations to the passengers even in the crisis situation. We support the initiatives of the Ministry of Transport intended to protect the interests of the aviation industry and tourists," Dmitry Gorin pointed out.

As a result of crisis center activity, 27,641 passengers have been transported as of October 3; the tour operators have independently, without any help from the crisis center, transported 14,000 tourists back home. We expect to transport 12,500 passengers more. On the whole, the main phase of the operation has already been completed, and it transferred into the scheduled regime of transporting tourists back home.

On October 3, Maxim Sokolov, Minister of Transport of Russia, held a meeting on increased liability of airline companies to the passengers for the delays and cancellations of flights. Representatives of the Ministry of Transport of Russia, Ministry of Culture of Russia, Federal Air Transportation Agency, Russian Federal Agency for Tourism, tour operators, and air carriers participated in the meeting. Vipservice Holding represented interests of the travel industry at the meeting.

Four main blocks of future work were outlined at the meeting:

- monitoring of the financial and economic activity of the air carriers;

- airline certification;

- precise order of crisis situation (if any) settlement by all representatives of the industry;

- establishment of the extent of the airline company's liability to the passengers at each stage of its activity.

Deputies of the State Duma supported the whole set of measures put forward by the Ministry of Transport. All suggestions were considered at the profile committee meeting at the Duma on October 4. Speaking at the committee, Dmitry Gorin suggested enhancing financial monitoring in the aviation industry and reminded about the necessity to comply with the government regulation concerning the registration of two-way tickets for the tourist trips 24 hours in advance.

The Minister of Transport highly appreciated the contribution of the travel industry to the crisis situation solving and will continue cooperation for amending the legislation. The amendments to the current legislation will be suggested at the plenary meeting of the State Duma on October 11.