The Federal Air Transport Agency of Russia announced that the government of the country provided a total of around €250 million for local air carriers as well as airports in a period of January-November 2020, to mitigate the expenses related to the COVID-19 crisis.
Aleksey Novgorodov, the Deputy Head of Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, stated that starting from May 2020, the country has already injected around €151 million (RUB13.6 billion) for a total of 45 Russian air carriers that applied for subsidies which should partially compensate for the pandemic related expenses. The Deputy Head of authority said that airports started to receive subsidies a month later than air carriers, from June 2020. The government provided a total of €100 million (RUB9.1 billion) to 108 airports around the country.
Novgorodov noted that the financial support provided by the state should help the aviation companies to accumulate their own working capital to pay off obligations to credit and leasing companies, suppliers as well as other related service providers. The Deputy Head considered that money that the country injected into its local aviation industry players allowed to avoid harsh staff cuts saving around 90% of the number of the industry workers as of January 1, 2020.
“From the very beginning of the crisis caused by the outbreak of coronavirus infection in early 2020, Russian civil aviation, like the entire aviation system of the world, has faced serious economic problems. In the current conditions, a demand was formed to preserve the industry and provide it with support, economic and financial measures were required. And such measures were promptly taken,” said Novgorodov in a press release.
According to the statement, civil aviation enterprises expect government support to continue in 2021.