Levitin appointed to oversee Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo merger project
MOSCOW. July 6. (Interfax) - Russian presidential advisor Igor Levitin will oversee a project to create a unified Moscow aviation transport hub, which involves merging the Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo airports, head of the presidential administration Sergei Ivanov said at a briefing on Friday.
"Ex-Transport Minister Igor Levitin will not deal with the entire transport industry; he will oversee a major project to create a unified Moscow aviation transport hub," he said.
The project's most important feature is that it involves merging Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo. A management company will specially be invited to manage the airports.
The decision to merge Vnukovo and Sheremetyevo was made at a meeting with the prime minister in March 2011. At that moment, it was necessary to merge OJSC Sheremetyevo International Airport with OJSC Terminal (the management company for Sheremetyevo's Terminal D). These two companies were merged this past March, at the same time that the Moscow Government was transferring its 75% stake in Vnukovo to federal ownership.
Levitin previously said that Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo might be merged next year.
Later, the Transport Ministry presented the government with a strategy to merge the three airports in Moscow, including Domodedovo. According to the ministry's plan, a single management company needs to be established for the airports in the Moscow aviation hub, and it needs to be given ownership over all of the airfield infrastructure belonging to the government. It would be easier for a management company to raise loans to develop and build new runways, the ministry said.
The management company Aeroports de Paris will be used as a model. There are not yet any concrete parameters for the strategy and the management company; they will be submitted by a consultant, which will be selected this year.
