newstodate.aero
Oct 18, 2011 (newstodate): What came out of the recent EU/Russia Aviation Summit in St Petersburg?
So far little detailed news has surfaced.
A main point of interest is the issue of Russia's collection, via Aeroflot, of overflight charges for trans-Siberian flights.
Here, the EU Commissioner Siim Kallas says on Twitter: "Minister Levitin confirmed that Siberian overflight royalties will be phased out with Russian accession to the WTO".
So it seems that Russia will finally have it its own way...
In his opening speech, Mr Kallas said on the issue:
-Russia forces EU carriers to sign commercial agreements with their competitor Aeroflot, which then dictates what EU airlines have to pay for overflying Siberia to Far East destinations currently, around 320 million a year. Russia is the only country in the world where such payments have to be made.
-Payments for Siberian overflights have strained our relations. Our agreement to resolve the issue, initialed at the 2006 EURussia summit in Helsinki and approved by the Russian government in 2007, has still not been implemented, pending Russia's delayed entry into the WTO. As the Agreed Principles state, we are not questioning Russia's right to collect fees for overflights. This is normal practice. Its a question of how it is being done now, which as we have said repeatedly is not at all transparent.
-Happily, the linkage of these two issues now seems to be on the point of being satisfactorily solved, both in respect of Russia's entry into the WTO and Siberian overflights, said Mr Kallas.
So far little detailed news has surfaced.
A main point of interest is the issue of Russia's collection, via Aeroflot, of overflight charges for trans-Siberian flights.
Here, the EU Commissioner Siim Kallas says on Twitter: "Minister Levitin confirmed that Siberian overflight royalties will be phased out with Russian accession to the WTO".
So it seems that Russia will finally have it its own way...
In his opening speech, Mr Kallas said on the issue:
-Russia forces EU carriers to sign commercial agreements with their competitor Aeroflot, which then dictates what EU airlines have to pay for overflying Siberia to Far East destinations currently, around 320 million a year. Russia is the only country in the world where such payments have to be made.
-Payments for Siberian overflights have strained our relations. Our agreement to resolve the issue, initialed at the 2006 EURussia summit in Helsinki and approved by the Russian government in 2007, has still not been implemented, pending Russia's delayed entry into the WTO. As the Agreed Principles state, we are not questioning Russia's right to collect fees for overflights. This is normal practice. Its a question of how it is being done now, which as we have said repeatedly is not at all transparent.
-Happily, the linkage of these two issues now seems to be on the point of being satisfactorily solved, both in respect of Russia's entry into the WTO and Siberian overflights, said Mr Kallas.