Thursday, February 17, 2011
THE European Commission has decided to put pressure on member states in a bid to ease the headaches Russia and its monopoly airline Aeroflot are causing Europe’s airlines.
After 15 years of unfruitful negotiations, Ireland has been warned, along with the other EU countries, that they cannot continue to have a bilateral agreement with Russia and must insist that only the EU can negotiate with Moscow on their behalf.
These agreements are causing major problems for Europe’s biggest carriers that have been involved in takeovers.
Russia has threatened, for instance, that they would reassess the rights of Austria Airlines when they were taken over by Lufthansa.
European airlines have also been told that they must stop paying Aeroflot for being allowed to overfly Siberia on their way to Asia and the east. During the cold war airlines were not allowed to fly over Siberia but once the iron curtain came down, Russia opened up their airspace, but insisted on charging airlines for flying through it.
This is pushing up the price of air tickets and as a result Aeroflot collects more than €310 million a year in charges from EU carriers.
The commission said that this was against EU antitrust law whereby companies should not be forced to conclude a formal process with a competitor. It is also against international law.
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