Wim avia who is the owner. vim-avia named the owner. Flight personnel and transportation safety

A month before the collapse of the aviation business, Rashid Mursekaev's consulting firm was bankrupted by his friend Sergei Galan, and Mursekaev's daughter sold her fuel company to Galan.

Investigators in the VIM-avia case are investigating how the co-owners brought the airline to collapse and where they could hide assets and money. It is possible that Rashid Mursekaev guessed about the imminent collapse of the aviation business and removed assets ahead of time, including through relatives and proxies. According to one version, the money went to Luxembourg - there, Mursekaev's son-in-law (or his full namesake) found an offshore company. And Mursekaev's daughter sold her billion-dollar fuel company a few weeks before the collapse of VIM-Avia. A month earlier, a company that was created to manage the carrier's finances had gone bankrupt. Both stories involved Sergey Galan, a longtime business partner of the Mursekaevs.

Strong bonds of family business

Most of Rashid Mursekayev's firms are family owned. Even in VIM-avia, the main owner is not him, but his wife Svetlana. Two of his sisters, for example, owned real estate companies.

And in 2014, the daughter of a businessman also went into business. Anna Ambrosova (Mursekaeva), still in her fourth year at MGIMO, founded the fuel company FT International. Already two years after the creation of FT International, it was earning 2.5 billion a year. The second co-owner was Anna's husband, 25-year-old graduate of the Higher School of Economics Nikolai Ambrosov. He is the son of Mursekaev's longtime business partner, Evgeny Ambrosov. Together, at the beginning of the 2000s, they managed a large maritime hub in Russia - the Far Eastern Shipping Company.

Presumably, the daughter's fuel company also made money by selling kerosene at the Bratsk airport in the Irkutsk region. This airport has long been owned by the Mursekaev family - first through the Invest Holding office, and now through VIM-avia.

Bratsk is a small but important hub used by transatlantic flights for refueling, and by the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations for extinguishing fires in the taiga and for observation flights. VIM-avia needed it as a transit point for refueling and maintenance of its Chinese flights: they started their business with charter flights to China. And this airfield is halfway from Moscow to China. On it, experts say, you can earn money by selling fuel.

“The main income there is refueling helicopters and planes,” says Boris Rybak, head of the Infomost consulting company.

Despite good financial performance, in August of this year, Anna Ambrosova and her husband unexpectedly decided to sell FT International. Interestingly, by that time, the father's airline was just beginning to have problems with debts for aviation kerosene. If we assume that the Mursekaevs knew about the imminent collapse and were preparing to flee abroad, then this step looks like getting rid of Russian assets. Especially given the personality of the buyer. They became a Moscow businessman Sergei Galan - a longtime acquaintance of the family. The offices of his firms are even located in the same business center as the Mursekaevs.

Interestingly, a month before the buyout of FT International, Galan, through the Technopolis controlled by him, bankrupted the same company of the Mursekaevs, which originally owned the Bratsk airport. It's about Invest Holding. The Mursekaevs created it 10 years ago to manage assets and securities, in a word, to provide management and operational support to VIM-avia. According to the Kartoteka.ru database, last year Invest Holding showed a net profit of 9 million rubles. However, for some reason, he did not have enough million to pay off some obligations to Technopolis in time. The court materials do not say what exactly Invest Holding owes.

offshore latitudes

The investigation may also be interested in the family's foreign assets. At one time, the airline was 20% owned by a Liechtenstein firm called Hercules Partners Fund. This may indicate at least that the Mursekaevs have connections there, and at the maximum, that part of the profits were withdrawn there.

And now, thanks to the Mossack Foneska database, it was possible to find out that a person with the same name and surname as Mursekaev's son-in-law is associated with an offshore company in Luxembourg. This is a company called Aloma S.A. Nikolai Ambrosov is its beneficiary. The investigation will have to find out whether the company is really controlled by Mursekaev's son-in-law or just his namesake. To do this, Luxembourg can send a request through Interpol.

Aloma has chosen the largest French Credit Agricole as its correspondent bank. "Correspondent bank" means that all settlements were carried out through it, and, most likely, the company's funds are stored in it. It is located in the same building as the Luxembourg branch of the bank.

The experts are divided

Some experts say that all this path of bankruptcies, changes of ownership and offshores could serve to withdraw assets. The Mursekaevs understood that the airline could soon be closed, and prepared the ground for withdrawal. Thus, the chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, Kirill Kabanov, is sure that the owners of VIM-avia did not plan to save the airline.

According to the chairman of the NAC, most likely, the Mursekaevs took most of the money from the banks abroad. And this process did not begin now, but three years ago, when the owners began to issue loans in large Russian banks, Kabanov believes.

- There are questions to the supervisory authorities, which poorly controlled the movement of funds from the airline's bank accounts, - the head of the NAC notes.

However, other experts believe that the Mursekaevs did not plan to hastily leave the country. According to the expert, editor-in-chief of the Air Transport Review magazine Alexei Sinitsky, most likely the reason for the collapse of VIM-Avia was the lack of working capital due to the desire to earn maximum during the high season.

- The owners did not calculate their financial capabilities. The money that the airline received for the tickets sold in the autumn-winter season was not enough to pay off creditors, Sinitsky suggests. - There could be a cash gap, and then everything just fell apart.

Sinitsky is sure that the Mursekaevs hoped that banks would support them with loans, and that Domodedovo Airport would continue to serve on credit.

“Autumn is always a financially difficult time of the year, and the owners of VIM-avia could not find a way out of this situation,” the interlocutor sums up. “But it seems that they fought to the last for the company's viability and did not plan to leave Russia in advance.

Flew, but did not promise to return

Whether the Mursekaevs planned to leave the country or not, they did it. According to the UK, the family flew out of Russia at the beginning of last week. Presumably, they flew to Turkey immediately after they publicly announced the pre-investigation check of the UK.

Turkey is usually quite willing to cooperate with the Russian security forces. Therefore, Life, in a previous article about VIM-avia, suggested that the family could move from Turkey to the UAE, Great Britain or Uzbekistan.

From the Arbat, through Moscow traffic jams, the children of the Mursekaevs got to their place of study. Both entered MGIMO. Moreover, Rashid was recommended for enrollment with only 65 points for the Unified State Examination in the Russian language.

Life according to the judicial base counted four fines in the amount of 18 thousand from him. He did not pay them on time, which is why the amount of the fine doubled and fell on the guy with a debt burden.

The first wave of claims hit his company in May: the carrier delayed dozens of charter flights across the country. Then the company justified itself by the fact that allegedly not all aircraft managed to return from scheduled maintenance.

Rostransnadzor blamed the fact that the company violated the terms and conditions of aircraft maintenance. The Prosecutor General's Office and Rostrud discovered cosmic - more than 200 million - wage arrears.

And the Investigative Committee generally initiated a criminal case on fraud against the accountant and general director. The investigation believes that the airline knew about the lack of funds for fuel for flights, but still sold tickets to passengers. Because of this, property damage was caused to at least 2997 passengers. In total, more than 40,000 passengers got stuck in resorts abroad and in the Russian Federation due to the collapse. Even when the claims of the Investigative Committee were at the stage of pre-investigation verification, the Mursekaev family fled abroad.

On Friday, President Vladimir Putin told Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who oversees transportation, that he was not coping with the situation. And he generally applied disciplinary measures to the Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov - he signed a decree on incomplete official compliance. The President criticized the approach of the Ministry of Transport to the development of criteria by which the department evaluates the work of the carrier.

Alena Panarina, an employee of the press service of the VIM-Avia company, told RBC that she does not comment on the movements of the owners.

According to SPARK-Interfax, Svetlana Mursekaeva owns 99% of VIM-Avia, Rashid Mursekaev owns 1% (previously 20% of the airline belonged to Liechtenstein's Hercules Partners Gemini-Gemini II Foundation).

On September 25, after massive delays in VIM-Avia flights and information that the airline had no funds to pay for fuel, Mursekaev admitted that “the airline has a difficult economic situation, working capital has run out and funding has been frozen.” “Since the airline cannot operate flights without additional funding, we are exploring the possibilities for introducing external anti-crisis management,” Mursekaev said in an interview with Rossiya 24.

On Monday, September 25, in relation to unnamed officials of VIM-Avia under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of Russia (fraud). They are suspected of having received 1 million rubles. through the sale of tickets, while knowing that the airline does not have money to purchase fuel and operate flights.

On the evening of September 27, an investigation against officials of VIM-Avia on behalf of the head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin for the investigation of particularly important cases.

The situation with VIM-Avia on Wednesday with members of the government, which was held by President Vladimir Putin. The head of state expressed bewilderment at the fact that the airline, according to officials, meets all the criteria, but at the same time cannot work.

Rashid Mursekaev in the early 1990s was engaged in the supply of food from Asia on account of debts for the supply of Russian weapons, together with Sergei Nedoroslev (now the chairman of the board of directors of the Kaskol group of companies). The partners established the Belukha company, which bought shares in defense and aviation enterprises. Subsequently, Mursekaev took up an independent business - he consolidated 68% of the shares of the Far Eastern Shipping Company, which he sold to Sergey Generalov in 2002 for $ 60 million. in the air carrier. In 2003, according to Forbes, Mursekaev spent $160 million on the purchase of 12 used Boeing aircraft.

Airline "VIM-Avia"

VIM-Avia was established in October 2002. The carrier carried out the first flights mainly in the Asian direction (Vietnam, China, Thailand). The airline's fleet consists of Boeing 777-300, 777-200, 767-300, 757-200 and Airbus 319-111, 330-200. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the founders of VIM-Avia LLC are Rashid (1%) and Svetlana (99%) Mursekaevs. They are also listed as founders of Invest Holding PJSC declared bankrupt in July 2017.

Financial indicators
In 2016, the company showed a net profit of 89 million rubles. with revenue of 17.174 billion rubles. The value of assets as of December 31, 2016 amounted to RUB 10.481 billion, and net financial debt was RUB 7.007 billion. (source: GMC Rosstat).

Traffic volumes
According to the Federal Air Transport Agency, in 2016, VIM-Avia carried 2.076 million passengers, showing an increase in this indicator by 30% and ranking ninth in the industry. The company itself attributed this growth to the commissioning of new aircraft (four Boeing 737-500s, two Boeing 767-300s, six Boeing 777-200s and one Airbus A330-200). From January to August 2017, the number of passengers carried continued to grow compared to the same period last year - by 31.4%. Nevertheless, the company dropped to tenth place, leaving North Wind behind.

Airline problems
In 2016, the company had problems with the implementation of passenger transportation. VIM-Avia allowed massive flight delays for many hours. In July 2016, the Federal Air Transport Agency warned VIM-Avia about the possibility of restricting the air operator's certificate due to massive delays and gave it a week to resolve all problems. A spokeswoman for the carrier noted that the delays were due to the high season and an attempted coup d'état in Turkey. The day after the warning was issued, the company announced the stabilization of the situation with transportation and reported that the problems were solved thanks to the introduction of new vessels.

The company ran into trouble again in 2017 when dozens of flights were canceled after delays in early June. The representative of Rostransnadzor then explained the failure of the charter program by delays in the repair of aircraft. The number of victims due to the problems of VIM-Avia in June 2017 was estimated at approximately 30 thousand people. As a result, the airline's share of delayed flights this month amounted to 13.56%. In July-August, problems remained: in July, the share of delayed flights amounted to 13.83%, and in August - 19.45%. In September, the airline delayed more than 40% of flights.

In January-September 2017, the department of state aviation supervision and oversight of transport security in the Volga Federal District conducted seven inspections at the airline, mainly at the request of citizens.

The youngest, and more recently the largest charter air carrier in the country, VIM-Avia, whose value is estimated by experts at $60 million, has officially revealed its owner. According to the company's materials, it is 100% owned by entrepreneur Rashid Mursekaev.

Until the last moment, VIM-Avia LLC kept financial performance and information about the owners secret. But now it has become public. The fact that Mursekaev is the owner of VIM-Avia was announced by the company in an investment memorandum. prepared for a bill of exchange loan in the amount of 500 million rubles. (a copy is at the disposal of Vedomosti). The loan is organized by the Region group of companies and Impexbank. An employee of one of these companies, who participated in the writing of the memorandum, specifies that Mursekaev controls all 100% of VIM-Avia's capital. The market guessed that the entrepreneur controlled the company, notes a source close to Mursekaev. But many believed that at least a small package remained with the founder of VIM-Avia, Viktor Merkulov, he adds.

Mursekaev is not a novice in transport, although he took up aviation only in 2003, when VIM-Avia appeared. And Mursekaev began his career in trade together with a fellow countryman from Barnaul, the founder of "Kaskol" Sergei Nedoroslev. At first, the partners were engaged in the supply of Chinese consumer goods - on account of debts for Russian weapons and aircraft. Then they bought up shares of regime and aviation enterprises. In 1997, they separated, and Mursekaev went into business on his own. Of his most famous transactions during this period, the resale of 68% of the shares of the Far Eastern Shipping Company to the ex-head of the Ministry of Fuel and Energy, Sergei Generalov.

Merkulov was the founder of VIM-Avia." Aviators joke that VIM stands for "Viktor Ivanovich Merkulov." Initially, the company's fleet consisted of four Il-62s and four An-12s. Then Mursekaev bought out a controlling stake in the carrier and organized the leasing of 12 used Boeing 757, due to which "VIM-Avia" has reached today's heights. The seller was the German Condor Flugdienst - the charter "daughter" of Lufthansa. The owners of the liners, as follows from the memorandum, remain the creditors of "VIM-Avia" - "Meridian-Leasing", Impexbank and Avangard-Leasing, the terms of agreements with them are 3-6 years.

It was not possible to contact Mursekaev and Merkulov yesterday.

Mursekaev acquired a good business. As follows from the memorandum of VIM-Avia, the company's revenue for 10 months of this year amounted to 4.5 billion rubles. Despite the fact that for the whole of last year the same figure was 822 million rubles. The company's recent purchases of other carriers - Chita-Avia, Aerobratsk and Russian Sky, among other things, helped the company move forward, the document says. By October, VIM-Avia had moved from 42nd to 6th place in terms of passenger turnover, surpassing Domodedovo Airlines and UTair, coming close to Transaero. And by the end of the year, the company's turnover should amount to 6 billion rubles, or $210 million, according to the memorandum. True, the profitability of VIM-Avia is not high. For 10 months, its net profit amounted to only 2.6 million rubles, and the return on sales was 0.19%, the document states.

"The company quickly entered the market and in a short time managed to become the sixth largest in terms of traffic," said Mikhail Ganelin, an analyst at CenterInvest Group. In his opinion, today the value of the entire company can reach up to 30% of its annual revenue, i.e. about $63 million.

Round dance of money. How the family of the owner of VIM-avia dumped assets before the collapse

consulting firm Rashida Mursekaeva a month before the collapse of the aviation business, his acquaintance went bankrupt Sergey Galan, and Mursekaev's daughter sold her fuel company to Galan. Investigators in the VIM-avia case are investigating how the co-owners brought the airline to collapse and where they could hide assets and money. It is possible that Rashid Mursekaev suspected the imminent collapse of the aviation business and removed assets ahead of time, including through relatives and proxies. According to one version, the money went to Luxembourg - there, Mursekaev's son-in-law (or his full namesake) found an offshore company. And Mursekaev's daughter sold her billion-dollar fuel company a few weeks before the collapse of VIM-Avia. A month earlier, a company that was created to manage the carrier's finances had gone bankrupt. Both stories involved Sergey Galan, a longtime business partner of the Mursekaevs.

Strong bonds of family business

Most of Rashid Mursekayev's firms are family owned. Even in VIM-avia, the main owner is not him, but his wife Svetlana. Two of his sisters, for example, owned real estate companies.

Rashid Mursekaev

And in 2014, the daughter of a businessman also went into business. Anna Ambrosova(Mursekaeva) while still in her fourth year at MGIMO, she founded the FT International fuel company. Already two years after the creation of FT International, it was earning 2.5 billion a year. The second co-owner was Anna's husband, a 25-year-old graduate of the Higher School of Economics Nikolay Ambrosov. He is the son of an old business partner of Mursekaev, Evgenia Ambrosova. Together, at the beginning of the 2000s, they managed a large maritime hub in Russia - the Far Eastern Shipping Company. Presumably, the daughter's fuel company also made money by selling kerosene at the Bratsk airport in the Irkutsk region. This airport has long been owned by the Mursekaev family - first through the Invest Holding office, and now through VIM-Avia.

Bratsk is a small but important hub used by transatlantic flights for refueling, and by the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations for firefighting in the taiga and for observation flights. VIM-avia needed it as a transit point for refueling and maintenance of its Chinese flights: they started their business with charter flights to China. And this airfield is halfway from Moscow to China. On it, experts say, you can earn money by selling fuel.

- The main income there is refueling helicopters and planes, - says the head of the consulting company "Infomost" Boris Rybak.

Despite good financial performance, in August this year Anna Ambrosova My husband and I unexpectedly decided to sell FT International. Interestingly, by that time, the father's airline was just beginning to have problems with debts for aviation kerosene. If we assume that the Mursekaevs knew about the imminent collapse and were preparing to flee abroad, then this step looks like getting rid of Russian assets. Especially given the personality of the buyer. They became a Moscow businessman Sergey Galan- An old friend of the family. The offices of his firms are even located in the same business center as the Mursekaevs.

offshore latitudes

The investigation may also be interested in the family's foreign assets. At one time, the airline was 20% owned by a company from Liechtenstein called Hercules Partners Fund. This may indicate at least that the Mursekaevs have connections there, and at the maximum, that part of the profits were withdrawn there.

And now, thanks to the Mossack Foneska database, it was possible to find out that a person with the same name and surname as Mursekaev's son-in-law is associated with an offshore company in Luxembourg. This is a company called Aloma S.A. Nikolai Ambrosov is its beneficiary. And the owner of the shares is a certain structure called The Bearer. It is noteworthy that one of the meanings of this word is "aircraft engine support". The investigation will have to find out whether the company is really controlled by Mursekaev's son-in-law or just his namesake. To do this, Luxembourg can send a request through Interpol.

The experts are divided

Some experts say that all this path of bankruptcies, changes of ownership and offshores could serve to withdraw assets. The Mursekaevs understood that the airline could soon be closed, and prepared the ground for withdrawal. Thus, the chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee Kirill Kabanov I am sure that the owners of VIM-avia did not plan to save the airline.

- The owners of VIM-avia acted according to a well-known fraudulent scheme. We got loans secured by property (liners) in four banks (according to preliminary data from the investigation, these are Sberbank, Absolut Bank, VTB and Zenit), Kirill Kabanov told Life. According to the chairman of the NAC, most likely, the Mursekaevs took most of the money from the banks abroad. And this process did not begin now, but three years ago, when the owners began to issue loans in large Russian banks, Kabanov believes.

- There are questions to the supervisory authorities, which poorly controlled the movement of funds from the bank accounts of the airline, - the head of the NAC notes.

However, other experts believe that the Mursekaevs did not plan to hastily leave the country. According to the expert, editor-in-chief of the journal "Air transport review" Alexey Sinitsky, most likely, the reason for the collapse of VIM-avia was the lack of working capital due to the desire to earn maximum in the high season.

Sinitsky is sure that the Mursekaevs hoped that banks would support them with loans, and that Domodedovo Airport would continue to serve on credit.

“Autumn is always a financially difficult time of the year, and the owners of VIM-avia could not find a way out of this situation,” the interlocutor sums up. – But it seems that they fought to the last for the company's viability and did not plan to leave Russia in advance.

Flew, but did not promise to return

Whether the Mursekaevs planned to leave the country or not, they did it. According to the UK, the family flew out of Russia at the beginning of last week. Presumably they flew to Turkey immediately after the pre-investigation check of the UK was publicly announced. Turkey is usually quite willing to cooperate with the Russian security forces. Therefore, Life, in a previous article about VIM-avia, suggested that the family could move from Turkey to the UAE, Great Britain or Uzbekistan.

In Russia, they still have some real estate assets. So, Svetlana Mursekaeva is registered in an apartment a stone's throw from the Arbat. Shares in this apartment are owned by Mursekaev's son Rashid and daughter Anna. The profitable house in Skatertny Lane was built at the beginning of the last century, and in the 2000s it was restored and turned into a club house. Now there are only 12 apartments in it, each with an average of 200 square meters and a price of at least 200 million. From the Arbat, through Moscow traffic jams, the Mursekaev children got to their place of study. Both entered MGIMO. Moreover, Rashid was recommended for enrollment with only 65 points for the Unified State Examination in the Russian language.

Mursekaev Jr., unlike his sister, has not yet completed his studies. On the way to the university, he sometimes breaks the rules of the road. He is reckless, drives in the opposite direction and shows disrespect to other drivers. At the beginning of 2017, he did not give way to a car with special signals. This is stated in the materials of the capital's courts. True, it does not say who exactly Rashid did not give way to - the ambulance or the police. Life according to the judicial base counted four fines in the amount of 18 thousand from him. He did not pay them on time, which is why the amount of the fine doubled and fell on the guy with a debt burden.

In this sense, Mursekaev Jr. followed in the footsteps of his father. Problems with Mursekaev Sr. also began because of debts. This led to the collapse of his business, criminal cases, and thousands of our compatriots could not return home on time. The first wave of claims hit his company in May: the carrier delayed dozens of charter flights across the country. Then the company justified itself by the fact that allegedly not all aircraft managed to return from scheduled maintenance.

The second wave turned out to be the last for the company. Fuel suppliers and airports said that VIM-avia owed them more than half a billion and they did not intend to fill in more fuel on credit. And in August-September, all departments began to make claims against VIM-avia: Rostransnadzor, Rosaviatsia, Rostrud, Prosecutor General's Office, Investigative Committee. Rostransnadzor blamed the fact that the company violated the terms and conditions of aircraft maintenance. The Prosecutor General's Office and Rostrud discovered cosmic - more than 200 million - wage arrears.

And the Investigative Committee generally initiated a criminal case on fraud against the accountant and general director. The investigation believes that the airline knew about the lack of funds for fuel for flights, but still sold tickets to passengers. Because of this, property damage was caused to at least 2997 passengers. In total, in resorts abroad and in the Russian Federation due to the collapse stuck more than 40 thousand passengers. Even when the claims of the Investigative Committee were at the stage of pre-investigation verification, the Mursekaev family fled abroad.

On Friday, President Vladimir Putin told the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of transport Arkady Dvorkovich that he can't handle the situation. And to the Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov generally applied disciplinary measures - signed a decree on incomplete official compliance. The President criticized the approach of the Ministry of Transport to the development of criteria by which the department evaluates the work of the carrier.

Scandal around VIM-Avia highlighted the essence of capitalism

Putin gave a RATE to the ministers because of the problem with VIM-Avia 09/28/2017

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Russian President Vladimir Putin allocated two aircraft from the Rossiya squadron, which serves the top officials of the state, to transport passengers of the VIM-Avia airline from Antalya, Turkey. “A special flight detachment “Russia”, on behalf of the President of Russia, will send two Tu-214 aircraft to Antalya to take out passengers of the VIM-Avia airline,” Yelena Krylova, press secretary of the presidential administration, told RIA Novosti on Friday, September 29. She clarified that one plane will take off at 13.00 Moscow time, the second - at 18.00 Moscow time. Both aircraft will be serviced at Vnukovo airport.

Also on Friday, President Putin signed a decree punishing Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov for the crisis situation that has developed with the removal of passengers from foreign resorts due to the debts of the VIM-Avia airline. “To announce a disciplinary sanction in the form of incomplete official compliance with the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Sokolov M. Yu.,” the text of the document published on Friday, September 29, on the official Internet portal of legal information says. The decree notes that the penalty was announced at the suggestion of the government.

The head of state announced the disciplinary measures taken against Sokolov on September 27 at a cabinet meeting. “And I want to tell the minister: I announce to you about incomplete official compliance. If you deal with this situation quickly and efficiently, then we will think with Dmitry Anatolyevich what to do with this incomplete official compliance. If you can’t do it, then we’ll think about it too, ”Putin said then (quote from RIA Novosti).

The President of Russia was surprised by Sokolov's explanation that VIM-Avia met the requirements for air carriers. “If you have developed such criteria, then what are they worth if nothing is visible behind them? What are these criteria? It meets the criteria, but it cannot work. Tens of thousands of people, tens of thousands found themselves in a very difficult situation. Well, it would be good if it was the first time, but this has been going on for years, ”Putin said.

He also criticized Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who oversees the transport industry in the government. “I draw the attention of the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of transport: you are not paying enough attention to this industry, not enough. Maybe you are overworked too? We have already talked about this,” Putin said. The head of state instructed Dvorkovich and Sokolov to effectively and promptly resolve the situation with the VIM-Avia airline, as well as to prepare proposals for resolving problems in the industry as a whole.

The total debt of VIM-Avia for services, fuel, airport and ground support for flights is about 1.3 billion rubles, according to a decree of the Russian government. “The Prime Minister signed a decree on the allocation of budgetary appropriations in the amount of 98 million rubles to the Federal Air Transport Agency to ensure, from September 28, comprehensive maintenance of VIM-Avia aircraft. Our main task for this moment- to ensure the return of people home. This is one of the solutions aimed at solving this problem,” said Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich (quoted by RIA Novosti).

Aerobatics figure. Why "VIM-Avia" failed to "change shoes" in flight

Complexities of tourism

Tour operators are ready to finance the transportation of VIM-Avia passengers to places of rest with a departure date before October 29, TASS reports, citing a source familiar with the situation. According to him, tour operators plan to pay airlines so that carriers take their clients, whom VIM-Avia was supposed to bring to resorts.

“Tour operators want to pay for re-delivery and take on the guarantee that they will pay for it for those passengers who must fly after October 16, when there will be no more VIM-Avia flights. And until October 16, the export will be issued from extrabudgetary sources, - said the source of the agency. “The depth of these transportations is until October 29.” He added that "it can be any airline, now there is a discussion with tour operators."

Tour operators interviewed by Forbes could not confirm the likelihood of such a decision, but confirmed the fact of negotiations. At the same time, they refused to assess the volume of financial losses of operators and tourists, since the situation may still change.

Tatyana Kruglova, PR manager at TUI, explained in an interview with Forbes that the company is actively looking for solutions. “The problems of the airline affected our activities, as part of our tours are based on this air carrier. This is mainly the Turkish direction, in terms of time - until the end of the summer season, and this is until the 20th of October in Turkey. At the moment, we are promptly looking for alternative transportation for our customers,” she said.

Director of the Department of Marketing, Sales and Work with Agencies of the ICS Travel tour operator Valeria Romanenkova, in turn, explained that the tour operator did not plan the program with VIM-Avia for the winter season, and the last two flights remained on the summer program on October 1 and 8 - we will replace them by another carrier.

“In general, the situation for the market is, to put it mildly, unpleasant. For a number of tour operators, this airline occupies a large percentage of transportation, someone has already planned the winter season with it. Of course, it will not be easy for them, since many of them sell with depth. But, it seems to me, at a time when summer programs are already ending, and winter has not yet started, it is possible to find additional capacities from other carriers,” Romanenkova is sure.

Escape of the owners and interrogations "without sleep and food"

The situation with the departures of VIM-Avia flights over the weekend, after which the airline officially announced that it did not have enough finances to continue working. VIM-Avia has stopped charter flights, but continues to operate regular flights. Other airlines have joined in the export of passengers under the control of the Ministry of Transport and the Federal Air Transport Agency.

Investigators detained the general director and chief accountant of VIM-Avia in the case of embezzlement. The co-owners of the company Rashid and Svetlana Mursekaeva fled the country, now the Investigative Committee is establishing where they are.

The chief accountant of VIM-Avia Ekaterina Panteleeva in the Investigative Committee gave detailed testimony related to the mass cancellation of flights by the airline, her lawyer Ekaterina Pavlovskaya told Interfax.

“The day before, being interrogated as a witness, my client gave the investigator very detailed testimony, explaining the reasons for what happened. But of course, she does not recognize any theft. This is absurd,” the lawyer said. Pavlovskaya said that her client arrived at the UK on September 27 at five o'clock in the evening to testify as a witness. After the interrogation, they did not let her go home, and by 11 o'clock on September 28 they issued a detention.

“Since the interrogation as a witness lasted almost all night, without sleep and food, Panteleeva asked to postpone her interrogation as a suspect. It will take place, as expected, tomorrow morning,” summed up the lawyer. According to her, the investigation will go to court with a request for a measure of restraint for her client on September 29. At the same time, the issue of the arrest of the general director of VIM-Avia, Alexander Kochnev, will be resolved. The Investigative Committee is investigating a criminal case under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (large-scale fraud) on the fact of the theft of passengers' funds by airline officials.

Who will pick up the assets

In January-August 2017, VIM-Avia carried 1 million 834 thousand passengers (10th place among Russian airlines, an increase of 31% compared to the same period in 2016), the average passenger seat occupancy rate was 76.1%. In terms of cargo and mail transportation, the airline ranks 11th in the country (11,700 tons).

The airline's revenue in 2016 amounted to 17 billion 174 million rubles (an increase of 38% compared to 2015), net profit - 89.1 million rubles (a decrease of 5.7 times). As of September 2017, the VIM-Avia fleet consists of 23 aircraft: 12 Boeing 777s (leased in 2015-2017), four Airbus A319s and Boeing 757s, two Airbus A330s and one Boeing 767. Average age aircraft - 19 years. In July 2017, the company signed an agreement on leasing 15 new Russian MC-21 aircraft.

The main owner is Svetlana Mursekaeva, she owns 99% of the shares of VIM-Avia, her husband Rashid - 1%. Svetlana and Rashid Mursekaev are put on the wanted list. According to Interfax, the spouses may be in Turkey.

Aeroflot is not interested in the assets of VIM-Avia, the airline said, commenting on information published in a number of media about the start of a struggle for assets and slots of VIM-Avia between market participants. Aeroflot refutes any speculation by journalists that the company is in any kind of struggle for the assets of VIM-Avia. Aeroflot is not interested in aircraft, route network, or other assets of VIM-Avia, the report says.

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