newstodate.aero
Feb 7, 2006 (newstodate): The Swedish Luleaa Kallax Airport is still actively seeking traffic and is in negotiations with "several potential customers", but it remains an up-hill battle.
-We are of course hindered in progress by the long drawn-out and so far little succesful negotiations by the EU with the Russians over prohibitive overflight charges on the arctic routes, says Robert Arendal, Kallax Project chairman of the Board.
-We are told that a solution could be expected by 2013, but until the Russian side agrees to abolish the overflight charges we will see little traffic on these over-taxed routes. And this makes it difficult for us to reach a break-through for the project.
-I am astonished that we can accept that no returns are made on the significant investments in new infrastructure to support operations on the Arctica routes. After all the west has contributed heavily, directly and indirectly, to the funding of this infrastructure, and we could rightly expect a fair return on this.
The business idea of Kallax Airport builds on commercial airlines' use of the short-cut via Arctica 1 and other routes via Sibirian airspace to cut total flying times significantly on flights between Northern Asia and Europe.
In this context, a fuelling stop at Kallax would enable cargo carriers to operate flights without weight penalties between major international hubs.
-We are of course hindered in progress by the long drawn-out and so far little succesful negotiations by the EU with the Russians over prohibitive overflight charges on the arctic routes, says Robert Arendal, Kallax Project chairman of the Board.
-We are told that a solution could be expected by 2013, but until the Russian side agrees to abolish the overflight charges we will see little traffic on these over-taxed routes. And this makes it difficult for us to reach a break-through for the project.
-I am astonished that we can accept that no returns are made on the significant investments in new infrastructure to support operations on the Arctica routes. After all the west has contributed heavily, directly and indirectly, to the funding of this infrastructure, and we could rightly expect a fair return on this.
The business idea of Kallax Airport builds on commercial airlines' use of the short-cut via Arctica 1 and other routes via Sibirian airspace to cut total flying times significantly on flights between Northern Asia and Europe.
In this context, a fuelling stop at Kallax would enable cargo carriers to operate flights without weight penalties between major international hubs.