Putin promised to restore direct flights to Egypt. The return of Hurghada: what Putin and al-Sisi agreed on. Information from Aeroflot

The ban on direct flights between Russia and Ukraine came into force. RBC looked at how foreign airlines are preparing to enter the market, where Russian and Ukrainian carriers earned 7-8 billion rubles. in year

Passengers in the waiting room of the airport "Borispol" in Kyiv (Photo: REUTERS 2015)

Bypass only

Saturday is the last dayit was possible to fly from Moscow to Kyiv and back on a direct flight. Since October 25, direct flights between the two countries are prohibited, and sales closed. The introduction of the ban became known at the end of September, and inOctober, many took advantage of the last chance for a comfortable flight - online ticket sales service Biletix fixed growth in sales of direct lines in the direction Moscow - Kyiv by 11% compared to last year, Moscow - Odessa - by 4%, the company's CEO Alexander Sizintsev told RBC.

Who served direct flights to Ukraine

Aeroflot made 35 flights a week to Kyiv, 21 flights to Odessa and 14 to Kharkov.

"Transaero" operated 23 flights a week to Kyiv, once to Odessa.

S7 weekly carried out seven flights to Kyiv and one to Odessa.

UTair She flew 14 times a week to Kyiv and seven times a week to Lvov and Odessa.

"Ukraine International Airlines" (UIA) carried out direct flights from Kiev to Moscow - 20 flights per week, to St. Petersburg - 14 flights per week, Kaliningrad - three flights per week. From Odessa, UIA had four flights a week to Moscow and one to St. Petersburg.

"Dniproavia" made seven flights a week from Dnepropetrovsk to Moscow.

Source: airline data as of the end of September 2015, Rosaviatsia data

From this Monday, you can fly to Ukraine only with a transfer. Before the ban, the Moscow-Kyiv flight took an average of an hour and a half. Now the shortest flight will take at least 4-4.5 hours (Air Moldova with a stopover in Chisinau). Other options are even longer - 4-8 hours (Belavia with a change in Minsk) or 7.5-9 hours (AirBaltic with a change in Riga), according to Onetwotrip. According to Aviasales, on October 25, the cheapest one-way flight with an hour connecting Air Moldova will cost 5952 rubles, Velavia - 8276 rubles. (connection - one and a half hours), AirBaltic - 9453 rubles. (docking - five hours).

There has not yet been a surge in sales for flights with transfers - early sales of air tickets to Ukraine after October 25 are almost zero, according to the travel service Tutu.ru. “We are seeing an increase in demand, but there is no jump,”confirms AirBaltic Vice President JanisVanags . He believes that customers waited until the last moment whether the ban would be implemented.

According to Onetwotrip analysts, before the ban on flights between Russia and Ukraine, it was more profitable to buy direct flights: the current prices for a round-trip ticket with a transfer are approximately equal to the prices of direct tickets that were valid before, or even higher. According to Onetwotrip calculations, from September 28 to October 25, the average price of a direct ticket to Kyiv was 11,312 rubles, to Odessa - 14,098 rubles. October 25 - November 22, the average price of a flight for which tickets are sold from Moscow to Kyiv is 12,931 rubles, to Odessa - 13,621 rubles.

Flights for foreigners

Kyiv will continue to be included in the top ten most popularth external directions from Russia, regardless of the political situation, says Biletix CEO Alexander Sizintsev. “The conflict does not apply to third-country airlines that will take over this direction,” he says.

The Moscow-Kyiv flight was one of the most frequent requests among users of online ticketing services, with about 100,000 passengers per month on this route, says Janis Dzenis from Aviasales. According to the Federal Air Transport Agency, over the three quarters of 2015, 800 thousand people were transported to the Ukrainian direction.

According to Tutu.ru analysts, the share of foreign air carriers in the Ukrainian direction - Belavia, Turkish Airlines, LOT - Polish Airlines, Air Baltic - until recently was less than 1% of the total number of tickets purchased. In recent days, their share by the date of sale has grown to almost 14%, by the date of departure - up to 25%.

These carriers will share 7-8 billion rubles. per year, at the same amount in early October, Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov estimated the total revenue of Russian and Ukrainian companies from direct flights. Moreover, two-thirds of the losses will fall on Russian airlines: according to the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, national carriers served only 30% of passengers in the Russian direction.

A list of 20 Russian airlines that Ukraine has banned from flying to the country since October 25 was published in mid-September. Aeroflot and its subsidiaries (Russia, Donavia "and "Orenburg Airlines"), " Transaero ”, “Siberia”, “Ural Airlines” and other smaller carriers. All of them are on the list because they ignore the Ukrainian authorities' ban on flights from Russia to Crimea. Russian authorities retaliated on 28 September.

About 10 million Russians visited Ukraine in 2013, according to Rostourism. In 2014, this figure dropped to 2.7 million. In the first half of 2015, to 800,000 people.

The resumption of air traffic between Russia and Egypt is again postponed. On Tuesday, Egyptian media, citing the head of EgyptAir, Safuat Muslim, reported that the Egyptian carrier's flights from Cairo to Moscow would begin no earlier than April.

“Flights to Moscow will start from April, unless there is a special need to organize flights in March, which requires a special reservation procedure,” Al-Ahram quoted him as saying.

Russia cut off air links with Egypt in the fall of 2015 after a terrorist attack over Sinai caused the crash of a plane of the Russian airline Kogalymavia, flying from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. 217 Russian tourists and seven crew members were killed. Russia put forward a demand to Egypt to strengthen aviation security measures.

An agreement to resume flights between Cairo and Moscow was reached at the end of last year during a visit to Cairo by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Later, the heads of relevant departments signed a corresponding agreement in Moscow.

The head of the Ministry of Transport, Maxim Sokolov, noted earlier that so far we are talking only about air traffic between the capitals, flights will be carried out by Aeroflot and EgyptAir, and regular flights will begin in February.

Even the date of issuing the final permission from the Federal Air Transport Agency was called - February 20.

However, the dates of the first flights are still not set, and ticket sales are not open.

“The Ministry of Transport calls on all departments involved in the process to speed up the process of resuming flights,” the department told Gazeta.ru.

They also said that all political decisions on the resumption of flights between Moscow and Cairo had been made, and all technical issues had been settled.

According to the schedule, EgyptAir plans to operate three flights between Moscow and Cairo per week. For this purpose, gates and check-in desks have already been booked at Domodedovo Airport. The company itself stated that it plans to start flights from February 1.

Representatives of the Russian air carrier also reported on plans for February. Aeroflot CEO Vitaly Savelyev told reporters in mid-January that flights to Cairo could be launched at the end of February.

On Tuesday, the airline's press service told Gazeta.Ru that the company is not going to make any announcements about the timing of the resumption of flights to the Egyptian capital.

The Federal Air Transport Agency also refrained from commenting.

Is it not possible or is it still possible?

Meanwhile, for tour operators, the situation with the opening of Egypt creates more inconvenience than opportunity. And first of all, because today not all market players fully understand whether Cairo will become the final destination for the flight (then you will have to get to Hurghada or Sharm el-Sheikh for 5-8 hours by bus), or the tour can include connecting flights to resort areas.

The Russian Union of the Travel Industry sent a request to Rostourism about the legality of forming tours not only to Cairo, but also through it to other distances, Yury Barzykin, vice-president of the union, told Gazeta.Ru.

“We wanted to get an official answer, because in the legal order everything is interpreted differently,” he said.

The head of Rostourism, Oleg Safonov, told Gazeta.Ru on the sidelines of the Russian Investment Forum in Sochi that this issue was not discussed with representatives of the market.

“Tour operators independently form a tourist product. Rostourism has never interfered in their production activities and is not going to do so. We proceed from the fact that you need to carefully read the presidential decree, everything is written there. The decree says that air transportation is to Cairo, ”said the head of the department.

The document referred to by the official is a “prohibitive” presidential decree issued after the disaster over Sinai in November 2015, and which was amended in January of this year in connection with the permission of flights to the Egyptian capital.

The decree recommends that tour operators and travel agents, for the duration of the flight ban, “refrain from selling to citizens a tourist product that provides for air transportation (including commercial) of citizens from the territory of the Russian Federation to the territory of the Arab Republic of Egypt, with the exception of Cairo.”

At the same time, neither the presidential decree nor the law has a restriction that would not allow tourists who arrived in Cairo to travel by planes of local airlines to other cities, says Vadim Ipatov, a lawyer for the Glazunov and Semenov company.

Rostourism previously noted that there is no ban on tour operators to form vouchers to any city in the Arab Republic of Egypt, except for Cairo.

The Red Sea is no closer

Tourists have not even been able to find out the timing of the possible start of booking tours to Egypt. The call centers of all major tour operators report that there are currently no sales.

So, in the Coral Travel company, the correspondent of Gazeta.Ru was advised that "today the direction is closed." Intourist noted that so far there is no information about the possibility of starting booking tours.

As TUI told Gazeta.Ru, tour operators are ready to form tours to Egypt through Cairo, but since trips to the Red Sea coast are most in demand among Russians, in addition to air traffic safety, a necessary condition for starting sales of tours to Egypt is to ensure the safety of movement within the country .

Tez Tour also plans to form tours based on a direct route to the capital of Egypt. The tour operator can only sell tours with the Moscow-Cairo-Moscow flight, but then we are talking about the transfer, explained Larisa Akhanova, PR director of the Russian tour operator.

While there are no flights even to Cairo, Russians travel to Egypt through third countries. The cost of a round-trip flight from Moscow to Cairo in February 2018 starts from 20 thousand rubles, Arkady Gines, OneTwoTrip service development director, cites figures.

According to the Biletrix service, early ticket sales in January-February from Russia to Egyptian resorts in the summer season of 2018 increased 4 times, but the volume does not exceed 0.1% of all sales to international destinations.

The average cost of a flight from Moscow to Cairo, Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh increased from 20,573 rubles to 28,591 rubles, that is, by 38%.

At the same time, direct flights to Egypt have not yet appeared in the Biletix system. According to Guinness, flights between Cairo, Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh are operated by three Egyptian airlines, and their services will cost travelers another 6,000-8,000 rubles.

Thus, the current cost of the flight is at least $500. Direct flights will be cheaper, experts say.

The deputy head of the Union of Tourist Chambers of Egypt, Mostafa Khelil, said in an interview with the RIA Novosti agency that the cost of a ticket to Egyptian resorts, taking into account the Moscow-Cairo flight, will start at $650.

Barzykin believes that as a result, the cost of the tour may be higher, and the risks are increased. Meanwhile, the Russians are waiting for budget Egypt, and not at the prices at which it will be sold with a transfer from Cairo, he concludes.

New US sanctions over the poisoning of the Skripals could affect Russia's largest airline, Aeroflot. In fact, this means that by the beginning of winter, Russia and the United States may be left without direct flights for the first time in 30 years. What will this mean for the company itself and for passengers?

The fact that Washington is preparing new sanctions against Russia in connection with the "Skripal case" was announced by the US State Department on the evening of August 8.

As part of the first wave of measures, which will take effect on August 22, the US will ban the issuance of licenses for the export of goods related to national security to Russia.

The second wave of sanctions suggests the possibility of depriving the right to land in the United States of aircraft of any airline that is controlled by the Russian government.

Aeroflot falls under this description - it is 51.2% owned by the state, another 3.5% is controlled by the state corporation Rostec. She is the only one who flies directly from Russia to the USA.

This will happen if Russia, three months after the introduction of the first wave of sanctions, does not provide a guarantee that it will no longer produce and use chemical weapons.

Against the background of news about possible sanctions after the opening of the Moscow Exchange, Aeroflot was among the leaders of the fall. For some time, the price of the airline's shares fell to the level of the beginning of 2008, however, by the end of the day, the company's papers partially won back the fall.

Profitable or not?

Aeroflot declined to comment. Flights to the USA are a profitable direction for this company, Oleg Panteleev, head of the AviaPort analytical service, notes.

But in the end, sales of round-trip air tickets from Russia to the United States in the first 7 months of 2018 decreased by almost a quarter compared to the same period last year, data from the Biletix service shows.

“Only Aeroflot can be competitive in this market. It has enough carrying capacity and a strong sales network, including in the States. This allowed him to consistently squeeze out American carriers from the Russian direction, because Aeroflot was more competitive, ”Panteleev notes.

In March 2018, for example, the American company Delta left the direction between Russia and the United States. For American carriers, home flights are more profitable than flights across the ocean to Russia, the expert notes.

How « Aeroflot « previously affected by politics?

• In March 2018, an Aeroflot plane that flew from Moscow to London was searched by British Customs. The Russian Foreign Ministry and the company itself said that the British authorities did not name the reasons for the search and conducted the search without letting the ship's commander out of the cockpit. The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, called the search a provocation that the British authorities needed to "save their reputation, which was completely undermined in connection with the Skripal case."
• In 2014, the low-cost “daughter” of Aeroflot, Dobrolet, fell under EU sanctions after 2 months of operation due to flights to Crimea. Contractors refused to work with the company, including the German Lufthansa Technik. As a result, Aeroflot liquidated« daughter« . The new low-cost airline received a different name - "Victory" and a new operator certificate.
• In 2003, Aeroflot was forced to temporarily change the routes of its flights over Canada and reduce the number of flights to Toronto.The conflict flared up becauseairlinesIAir Canadaaskedfly free from Toronto to Delhi over Russian territorybut she was denied. As a result, the government of Canada has set restrictions on aircraft transit flights.« Aeroflot« .
• In December 1981, Aeroflot was banned from flying in US airspace after the introductionWithSoviet troops in Afghanistan. In September 1983-of the year, After that how Soviet air defense systems shot down the Boeing 747 of the South Korean airline Korean Air Lines, air traffic between Russia and the United States was effectively blocked. Later, the blockade was lifted, but until 1986 Aeroflot offices in New York and Washington were closed and contacts between American airlines and Aeroflot were prohibited.

If they do cancel

A senior State Department official told Reuters that Washington's planned sanctions on Russia would not directly affect Aeroflot, but could theoretically apply to goods exported by the United States purchased by the Russian airline.

Flight bans could be imposed on Aeroflot in the second stage of sanctions if Moscow does not comply with Washington's conditions, in particular, does not allow international inspections.

According to Panteleev, prices for flights to the United States will increase, but not significantly, since the choice of flights with transfers is very large. According to Biletix, now more than 95% of air tickets sold in this system in the United States are flights with transfers. At the same time, after transferring at European airports, Russian passengers most often fly to the United States on flights of foreign airlines.

According to Panteleev, if Aeroflot is de facto banned from flying to the United States, Russia's retaliatory measures could turn out to be very tough - as one of the options, agreements under which American carriers use routes over Russian territory could be revised.

Difficulties associated with the distribution of "Arctic" routes have arisen before. In May, the US Department of Transportation ordered three Russian airlines to provide information about future flights to the States to verify that the flights comply with US law. The US authorities called this a response to the actions of Russia, which did not provide American cargo carriers with a corridor to cross its airspace.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on August 9 that response measures would be worked out "based on the actions that the American side will take."

“If there are measures, we will make decisions based on what American legislators and political lobbyists come up with this time,” Zakharova said. - Everything is very simple. If [the United States] comes up with nothing, we won’t do anything; if they come up with something, we will respond; if they come up with something extra, we will respond in the same spirit. Nobody canceled the rules of the game.”

According to Panteleev, the Russian aviation authorities will in any case not allow American airlines to replace Aeroflot on direct flights.

The resumption of flights to Egypt - the latest news for today.

According to Elhami al-Zayat, the former head of the tourist office in Egypt, from 2018 the number of Russian tourists in Egyptian resorts should increase to 1,000,000 people.

Egypt fulfilled all the conditions of the Russian authorities so that charters from Moscow to this country would be opened soon. By the end of the month, charters to two cities - Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh - should be restored.

By the end of 2018, charters to Egypt from Moscow should be fully open. According to Aeroflot, three flights during the week fly to Egypt today - on Tue, Thu and Sun.

Recall that on October 17, 2018, Sochi hosted a regular meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Egyptian President Abdulom-Fattah Khalil Al-Sisi, at which concrete ways of resuming friendly relations between our countries were discussed.

Therefore, now many Russian airlines express a positive opinion about the work carried out by the Egyptian authorities, who were engaged in the modernization of their airports to ensure the safety of tourists, including Russian ones.

At all airports in the resort towns of Egypt, equipment has been upgraded that is capable of detecting explosives. The video surveillance system has been improved, as well as the screening procedure before the flight. For these purposes, the responsible departments of Egypt have allocated about ten million dollars.

This was exactly the requirement of the Russian authorities, who repeatedly carried out checks at the airports of the resort cities of Egypt.

According to the former deputy head of the Central Bank of Egypt, and now the Minister of Tourism of Egypt, Rania Mashat, Egypt has already done everything possible to return the flow of tourists that was a few years ago. Now the resort is in great demand among residents of Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Germany. Last year, many tourists flew in from China. Based on this, we can conclude that the tourism industry is gradually returning to normal, informs the portal rosregistr.ru

WHEN CHARTERS TO EGYPT WILL BE AVAILABLE

Some time ago it was said that Egypt would be open to Russians this fall. But in the end, this will happen no earlier than March-April 2019.

According to the majority of Russian tour operators, flights for Russians to Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh will be restored in December 2018. But, then it will take another couple of months for the development of new tourist programs by Rostourism for residents of all regions of Russia.

“We believe that this will happen in the spring of 2019, because air communication with Cairo has already been established,” the executive director of the Association of Travel Agencies of Russia (ATOR) emphasized.

“Purely theoretically, even if Egypt is suddenly declared open tomorrow, it is impossible to quickly draw up charter programs and find the necessary number of aircraft to launch the necessary volume of traffic there,” Maxim Puzankov, president of the Ural Tourism Association, confirmed.

LATEST NEWS ABOUT THE OPENING OF AIR CONNECTIONS WITH THE RESORT CITIES OF EGYPT

The Egyptian authorities are confident that in March-April 2019, flights will be opened to every resort city in Egypt. Now air communication has been established only with the Cairo airport, which has passed all the checks. But such a vacation is not popular among tourists, since it takes a very long time to get to your hotel from Cairo, it can take from 6 to 7 hours, which is not at all profitable for tourists.

Egyptian Ambassador to Moscow Ihab Nasr expressed the hope that Russian tourists will be able to massively relax in the resorts of Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh as early as 2018. In his opinion, this is evidenced by the results of the meeting of the Presidents of the Russian Federation and the Arab Republic in Sochi.

The diplomat noted that the resumption of flights is at the final stage. “I hope in the very near future, even before the end of 2018, I really hope,” the ambassador said about the start dates for charter programs.

Most other experts in the field of tourism are inclined to believe that the destination may open immediately after the New Year. Thus, the Egyptian travel expert Abdul Aziz believes that the opening of charter flights to Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh will take place in early January 2019. His opinion is quoted by the ATOR Bulletin.

Sergei Samokhvalov, Director for Development of the Global Travel Travel Agencies Network, gave a less optimistic forecast - in his opinion, air traffic will be restored at best in March-April 2019.

We immediately tell our customers: most likely, regular flights of those companies that have permits will open first. According to our estimates, anyway, it will not be earlier than the middle of spring. These are the most optimistic expectations. Because, as we understand, documents on security issues have not yet been signed, - he told the portal life.ru

Dmitry Gorin, adviser to the head of the Federal Tourism Agency for transport, noted that the number of tourists visiting Egypt has fallen significantly.

Egypt is now visited by no more than 100 thousand people, and before the closure of flights it was 2.5-3 million tourists. The figures speak for themselves, tourists, of course, are waiting for more comfortable charter flights, Gorin noted.

MOSCOW, October 24 - RIA Novosti / Prime. Exactly one year marks on Tuesday, October 25, with the introduction of a mutual ban on direct flights between Russia and Ukraine. During this time, the parties have not been able to sit down at the negotiating table, so experts and political scientists, assessing the losses of carriers in different ways, are unanimous in one thing - passengers will not see the Moscow-Kiev flight schedule on the airport scoreboard for a long time.

Ukraine "closed the sky" for Russian passenger and freight traffic from October 25, 2015 - with the start of the winter schedule. The sanctions list included the largest Russian carrier Aeroflot, then Transaero, which was still in a pre-bankrupt state, Yakutia Airlines, and airlines of the S7 group. All of the listed carriers flew charters or regular flights to the Crimea that became Russian.

On the same day, Russia introduced mirror measures against Ukrainian airlines. The ban, the Federal Air Transport Agency noted a year ago, will remain in effect until the decision of the Ukrainian authorities regarding Russian airlines is canceled.

However, as the agency stated, after the MH17 crash near Donetsk, the vast majority of Russian airlines refused to carry out transit flights through the airspace of Ukraine for safety reasons, and only a small part of domestic carriers, if necessary, made transit flights through the territory of a neighboring state.

“We used to have a dynamically developing market for air communications with Ukraine based on the “open skies” principle. Unfortunately, we were forced to give an adequate response to the initiative of the Ukrainian side,” recalls Petr Deinekin, chairman of the Public Council under the Federal Air Transport Agency.

Victims and Winners

The decision on the part of Kyiv hit, first of all, the aviation industry and the airports of Ukraine itself, said the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Maxim Sokolov. According to the data of Russian airlines, which were cited by the Federal Air Transport Agency, more than 70% of the passengers of all flights between the two states were formed by Ukrainians. Passenger traffic between the two countries for 8 months of 2015 amounted to about 800 thousand people.

“We didn’t have a tragedy, but Ukraine lost a lot. Our airlines are conscientious payers, airport fees and funds for overflight of airspace were paid to Ukraine regularly, so Ukrainian aviation enterprises suffered heavy losses,” Deinekin said.

Ruslan Bortnyk, director of the Ukrainian Institute for Policy Analysis and Management, recalls Ukraine's losses from transit. “We have lost not only the opportunity to earn money on flights with Russia, but also part of the transit potential. Many Russians flew to Russia through Ukrainian airports, I think that today we are talking about tens of percent of the drop in transit potential, although the number of air passengers traveling to Ukraine this year increased," the expert said.

In November last year, Andriy Pivovarsky, then Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine, estimated the losses of the State Enterprise for Air Traffic Services of Ukraine from the ban on transit traffic for Russian airlines at 25-30 million euros per year.

According to the head of the analytical service of the Aviaport agency, Oleg Panteleev, it is rather difficult to accurately assess the losses of Russian airlines from bans on flights to Ukraine. "Obviously, there are no exact figures (losses - ed.), because the airlines basically managed to quickly revise their route networks and schedules, thereby finding other sources of income and opportunities to use their aircraft," he said. According to the expert, carriers' losses are connected, firstly, with a general reduction in the number of flights, and secondly, with the need to fly around the territories of countries.

Losses were suffered not only by airlines, but also by airports. In February of this year, the deputy director of Domodedovo, Denis Nuzhdin, estimated the losses of Russian airports from the suspension of air traffic with Ukraine at 690 million rubles.

And, for example, the Belarusian airline Belavia, on the contrary, benefited from the termination of air traffic between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, Panteleev said. “It is this carrier that offers the shortest and fastest way to get from the vast majority of points in Russia to a number of cities in Ukraine,” he said. This air carrier was able to transfer a significant part of the passengers traveling on direct flights to their planes with a transfer in Minsk.

Belavia itself reported that immediately after the termination of air traffic between the two countries, it doubled its passenger traffic on the Minsk-Kyiv line. And since December, the carrier has opened a flight to Kharkov.

There is readiness, there are no contacts

At the end of October 2015, the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine received a letter from the Federal Air Transport Agency with a proposal to negotiate the restoration of air traffic between the countries, but the Ukrainian department stated that the position set out by the Russian Federation was unacceptable for Kiev.

The Ukrainian side insisted that in order to start the negotiation process, Russia should stop flying to Crimea and pay a fine for flights of Russian airlines over the territories where Kyiv closed airspace.

And in November, the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine announced that Kyiv would not allow airlines from the Russian Federation to fly to the country's airports while they fly to Crimea.

During the year, Moscow repeatedly expressed its readiness for negotiations and compromise. In August, the head of the Ministry of Transport, Maxim Sokolov, once again stated that the Russian Federation was ready to resume dialogue on these issues, both in whole and in parts.

“In the near future, there are absolutely no opportunities to restore these transportations and direct air links between Ukraine and Russia. Obviously, everything depends on political ambitions, and on the political confrontation that has unfolded between Ukraine and Russia,” says Bortnik.

Deinekin also believes that there will be no progress on this issue in the near future. “You are asking if this will last? Unfortunately, for a long time. So until the political will is shown, this absurd situation will continue,” he said.

"The Russian side is open to dialogue on this issue. The Ukrainian side does not enter into official contacts," RIA Novosti was confirmed in the press service of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation.

"Recently, the President put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council to extend the sanctions for another year. Here is the answer to the question of the possible resumption of air traffic," the state aviation service of Ukraine answered RIA Novosti's question.

Since 2015, restrictive measures against Russian individuals and legal entities have been in force in Ukraine. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko in October by his decree put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council to extend and expand the sanctions list against legal entities and individuals of the Russian Federation. The list is supplemented by 167 enterprises. In particular, sanctions have been imposed on UTair airlines that restrict, partially or completely stop the transit of resources, flights and transportation through the territory of Ukraine.