Great figures came out of China this week for aviation as forward bookings through Chinese travel agents and directly with airlines have risen sharply for this year’s ‘Golden Week’ Festival. 2014 bookings were up around 30% on 2013 and this year is expected to show further growth, but as passenger traffic in China grows there is no doubt that a very large percentage of potential new passenger traffic is being put off of flying due to delays.
Meanwhile in Russia, Aeroflot received quite a blow this past week as Ukraine told Russian Airlines not to enter its territory. In reply, Russia is restricting its airspace to Ukraine from 25th October 2015. Do not under estimate the importance of this move by Ukraine as currently seven out of ten Ukrainian air passengers use Aeroflot to connect to the world via Moscow and all this traffic is now lost. This traffic should now divert via Europe and the Middle East to connect to the world.
All the while the ICAO continues to try to open and manage the all-important Black Sea and Sea of Azov air corridor to International air traffic. There remains concern that both Russian and Ukrainian air flight controllers will give pilots conflicting information and thus the ICAO stepped-in but a deal with Russia remains some way off at this time.
In Moscow, Transaero should today run out of fuel. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev give authorization for bankruptcy proceedings to commence against Transaero airlines to force through the Aeroflot takeover of what remains, since the shareholders were not able to consolidate the 75% holding to transfer to Aeroflot. The bankruptcy will burn the creditors, especially the banks involved. Aeroflot said it would stop refueling Transaero planes on October 2.