Moscow could sell its stakes in Vnukovo and Moskva Airlines - Levitin
MOSCOW. Nov 18 (Interfax) - The government of Moscow could sell its stakes in Vnukovo Airport and Moskva Airlines (earlier called Atlant-Soyuz), Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin told journalists in Moscow on Thursday.
"The position of the Moscow mayor is to get rid of all non-profile assets. These non-profile assets will likely be sold," he said.
The Moscow government owns 75% of the shares in Vnukovo and 51% in Moskva Airlines.
OJSC Vnukovo Airport posted 179.69 million rubles in net losses according to Russian accounting standards (RAS) in January-September 2010 compared to 317.85 million rubles in net profit posted for the same period of 2009. The airport's sales revenue increased by 11% year-on-year to 2.058 billion rubles.
Passenger throughput through Vnukovo Airport increased by 25.1% year-on-year to 7.3 million passengers in January-September 2010.
Moskva Airlines flew 1,122,478 people in January-September 2010, which was a year-on-year increase of 30%. Viktor Grigoriev's OJSC Helicopter Servicing Company owns 49% in the airline. The company is based out of Vnukovo.
The airline's aircraft fleet consists of four Tu-154Ms, six IL-86, two Boeing-737-300, four Embraer-120s and six Boeing-737-800s. The airline flew 970,737 passengers in 2009, which was a decrease of 32% from 2008.