No decision yet on reserve fund for airlines
MOSCOW. May 6 (Interfax) - There has been no decision yet on creation of a reserve fund to finance travel by passengers booked on airlines that subsequently go bankrupt, a spokesman for the Transportation Ministry told Interfax.
"No decision has been made. So far there is no timetable for when the fund might appear, or whether it will at all," he said.
The airlines are the ones that need to decide to set up the fund, but so far they haven't expressed much interest in the idea. "Talks are underway with the airlines. The main issue is how much money a company would have to contribute to the fund," he said. The Transportation Ministry has proposed that contributions be in proportion to a carrier's passenger turnover on regularly scheduled flights.
A representative of Rosaviatsia told Interfax that plans for the fund are only beginning to take shape and that the funding mechanism is still being developed. No concrete decisions have been made yet.
The idea of creating the reserve fund came up following the bankruptcy of KD Avia and the companies in the AiRUnion alliance.
The state allocated 5 billion rubles to finance travel booked with those airlines. The same amount was allocated in 2010. Just 300 million rubles was allocated this year.
