Here you can read brief english versions of two my articles that were published by Hotline Tourism magazine in October 2003. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

If airlines are closed down it means that somebody wants them to do that

In August and September 2003 a series of scandals broke out the Russian commercial aviation community. The flights of three Russian airlines that used to operate in the air charter market – AJT int., Airfreight and Eurasia were cancelled by GSGA (aviation authority in Russia). The revocation of AJT’s license was explained as due to the company’s huge debts that were estimated up to $7,000,000 USD. The claims against Airfreight were due to the fact of considerable overload of company’s Tu-154 plane on its way from the United Arab Emirates (one of the leading shopping destinations for Russians). Eurasia was deprived of flying for breeching the sortie rate regulations for one of their airplanes. Despite this fact, the outburst of the interest shown by the control authorities to the smaller airlines could not be simply explained by the regulations infringements. Some observers see a reveal of double standards practice behind this fact, personal like and dislike of the officials striving to complete the governments implied order to reduce the number of air carriers in the country. The only way for the disgraced air companies to resist is to make an alliance with other airlines and to perform the flights by the other code. For example as Eurasia finally did. But all the same, the power impact has a noble goal – to promote the integration in the industry in order to renew the aircraft fleet and to improve the flight safety.

Three groups of mountain-skiing destinations

The growing demand for foreign mountain-skiing vacations makes travel agencies get into deeper and deeper study into geography of travel operators’ offers while looking for the most suitable option for one or another client. As practice shows, it is easier to cope with a variety of programs if you divide mountain-skiing destinations into three target groups.

For the Russian travel market the most prestigious mountain-skiing vacations mean France and Switzerland. Both countries have high mountains that allow all-year-round skiing. However, these countries will not ever become mass destination for the Russian market. The reason is their elite status combined to high prices, which is a proper feature of Switzerland particularly. There are also difficulties with reservations as both countries are highly popular among the European tourists.

Vacations in Austria and Italy are much more democratic and affordable. Italy attracts by up-to-date infrastructure: the mountain-skiing industry is developing swiftly there. The Austrian tourism office in Russia has managed to create the country image as the most fashionable European mountain-skiing center. This considerably enhances the clients’ demand and the attention of travel agencies to Austria as well. As a result, Russian tour operators have already planned five charter programs to Salzburg especially if compared only two programs last year! This could have undermined the market but the commonsense as finally taken over and by the time of October it deals about three charters at most.

The cheapest and the most affordable mountain-skiing are offered in Andorra. Its slopes are perfect for the beginners and moreover, Andorra’s resorts attract Russian tourists with numerous shopping possibilities and boisterous nightlife – everything what the so-called “apre`s-ski” includes. The popularity of mountain skiing tours in East European countries (Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia) is growing as well as their infrastructure has been developing rapidly lately.