Eduard Teplitsky: Azimut - Year First, The Flight Goes On

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Homepage »Airlines » Interview Azimut - Year First, The Flight Goes On Monday October 8, 2018 05:23 MSK / Eduard Teplitsky On September 21, 2018, Azimut celebrated the first anniversary of the beginning of flights from Vnukovo Airport. On the same day, the 500,000th passenger of the airline was honoured at the airport. The executive director of the airline, Eduard Teplitsky, spoke about these significant events for the airline, and also about the prospects for the development of the airline in an interview with media representatives. Eduard Teplitsky the Executive Director of Azimuth airlines - On August 18, 2017, Azimuth airlines received an operator certificate. This day is significant for aviators - by the old calendar it is the Day of the air fleet. And on September 21, 2017, regular flights began. Today is exactly the first nineersary for these regular flights. We’ve come a long way for the first anniversary. It has been a very interesting and difficult year at the same time. We started flying in 2017 with four SuperJet 100 aircraft. During this year, our fleet doubled to eight aircraft. We have certified our engineering service since this month and so-called A-checks we are doing on our own. Our airline is based in Rostov-on-Don, including the flight service and the flight attendant service, and we have a certified line maintenance station in the city of Krasnodar. Basically, we carry out direct flights, bypassing the Moscow aviation hub. At the same time, we fly to Vnukovo airport, there is also a rather broad program here. During this year we transported and, again, such a coincidence, today we re going to honour the half millionth passenger. By the end of the year, we plan to overcome the bar of seven hundred thousand passengers, and next year we must exceed the bar of one million passengers. We have one of the youngest fleets of aircraft, probably, not only in Russia, but also in the world. Three aircraft of 2017 release, one - 2016, and four aircraft release in March 2018. Five airplanes operate in Rostov-on-Don and three in Krasnodar. The layout of the 100 seats, there is an economy class and comfort class. All aircraft are with an index LR (Long Range), with an increased range, which allows us to carry out flights lasting more than four hours. These are the results for the year. And, of course, there are plans for the future - to increase the fleet of aircraft. By April next year, we plan to add two more SuperJet aircraft, two in 2020, and another four aircraft in the period 2020–2021. According to the plan, by 2021 we have to go with sixteen SuperJet aircraft. - Are you interested in the new modification of the aircraft, the SuperJet 75, promised by the manufacturer? - Just recently, this topic was discussed at Hydroavaisalon in Gelendzhik. Some airlines have proposed to consider the version of the SuperJet aircraft for 120 seats. We are one of those airlines that supported this option. And the aircraft with 75 seats is not interesting for us. - Periodically there is information about problems with spare parts for "SuperJet", with after-sales service. How are you with this? - Aircraft is operated for about eight years. We have pilots who flew on those aircraft that were produced in 2011, and on those aircraft on which we now fly. They note a positive trend, and, in general, we ourselves see it. Last year, some rotations were made in the leadership of Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, and the situation with the after-sales service has improved significantly. We have achieved, in general, one of the highest raids on this type of aircraft during this period. For a year of operation, there are no serious failures, the planes are all in service, they all work. As for the aircraft manufacturer, we have almost direct contact with the management, and the most important thing is good contact with specialists horizontally. Of course, there are some defects, but even at night, when something happens, we work very well together with the SCAC. Now the manufacturer has round-the-clock support service, which was not there before, and this allows you to keep one hundred percent of the park in the ranks. - And what about the economy SuperJet? - I'll start a little from afar. This is a Russian-made aircraft. There is a government decree number 745 on the support of the Russian aviation industry. We, naturally, use these mechanisms that are laid there. It must be admitted that the Russian aviation industry is, in general, well subsidised. For each aircraft, in accordance with this decree, a home warehouse of spare parts is created. The carrier pays ten percent, and ninety percent - the state. Accordingly, for each ship it is the sum of about 115 million. The support of our aviation industry is quite serious. You yourself understand that if an air carrier, such as us, receive eight aircraft, this requires an additional spare parts warehouse of about one billion rubles. In addition, the government decree also provides funding for training pilots, flight attendants and engineers - in the same way, that is, 90% is funded by the state. This is a very good support, and, of course, it significantly improves the economy of the aircraft, because Azimut is a young carrier, almost one billion to get spare parts is a serious support. But this not only concerns us, but in principle any Russian carrier. Speaking of liner economy, fuel consumption of about two tons per hour is also a good factor for a 100 seat aircraft. All this allows you to get a normal economy. - What is your average daily patina? - The average daily flight time is about six and a half hours a day. It seems that it is not very big, but we have such specific flights - these are not transatlantic flights. We have short flights, where the shoulder is about an hour of flight. Accordingly, it is impossible to fly eleven hours a day. However, we plan next year to bring the raid on airplanes to more than eight hours a day. - What is the long-term development strategy of the aircraft fleet? Will you keep it the same type, and only use SuperJet, or expect to buy other types of aircraft? - Of course, we meet with many aircraft manufacturers, such as Airbus, Boeing, and so on. Recently, one of the aircraft manufacturers in Domodedovo brought one of the new products (Embraer E190-E2, editor's note). We were there too. But for the next three years, as I said, we plan to operate only SuperJet aircraft. The plane turned out to be multi-purpose. On the one hand, it has a take-off weight of 49.5 tons, and on the other, it has a hundred seats, fuel consumption is about two tons per hour. This allows you to effectively fly in those areas where there is a stable passenger traffic. If you look at our reports, the average passenger load is about 83%. Therefore, for example, we don’t look at turboprops - after all, a jet plane is more comfortable for passengers and faster. It can be used both on sites with a length of one hour, and, for example, Rostov-Novosibirsk, that is, about four hours flight, while it is quite comfortable for passengers. - Now there is a tendency on routes with a long shoulder to try to use, nevertheless, large aircraft with a capacity of two hundred passengers and even more ... - Still, it is not about charter flights, for example, from Moscow to Antalya. Of course, here, probably, one of the most efficient aircraft is the Boeing 747 or Boeing 777. It's still about regional routes. Such passenger traffic, when it is necessary to simultaneously collect five hundred people and transport somewhere inside Russia, in general, is not enough, except for the Moscow direction. Therefore, the layout of the 100 seats, and, as I said, perhaps 120 seats - just what you need. - Will the frequencies of already existing directions increase with the development of the fleet? - Of course we are planning. Now we are flying forty-one routes. The tasks of the next year - somewhere for the winter period of the next year, we plan to start flights to foreign countries from the regions. Just our aircraft allows it, because its range is four thousand two hundred kilometres in the Long Range modification. Therefore, if we take from the south of Russia, then this is practically the whole of Europe and the Middle East. We are talking about the directions, traditional for the south of Russia: Turkey, Israel, Germany, Czech Republic. - You said you now have 41 routes. How many of them are subsidised by the state and regions? - We have subsidies not only for the aviation industry, which I have already mentioned, but also Government Decree No. 1242 on co-financing regional routes for air carriers. We also participate in these programs. About 20% of the flights we operate fall under such programs. Under such programs fall, for example, "Rostov - Makhachkala", "Rostov - Kazan" and so on. This allows you to fly in areas where the solvency of the population is somewhat limited. On the one hand, the line is funded, and on the other, marginal fares are introduced, above which it is impossible to deliver, which makes tickets available to passengers. - Have you considered any other airport in the Moscow region, except for Vnukovo? - What is good about Vnukovo airport? First, if you fly from Rostov or Krasnodar, then the flight to Vnukovo is about 5-10 minutes shorter than Domodedovo or Sheremetyevo, and 10 minutes there, 10 minutes back, is 20 minutes of flight - serious fuel economy. Secondly, Vnukovo Airport has, in our opinion, the best air terminal in Moscow. It is new, excellent and comfortable. And third, it is close to Moscow.