The co-owner of VIM-Avia, Rashid Mursekaev, and his wife Svetlana, who also has a stake in the airline, left Russia on September 26, and on September 25 the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case of fraud against the VIM-Avia management. According to the investigation, the officials of the airline, lacking money and contracts for the purchase of fuel for aircraft and "the ability to fulfill their obligations to carry passengers", continued to sell air tickets and received "through fraud, money in the amount of over 1 million rubles."
The departure of Mursekaev became known on the evening of September 27, sources of Interfax and the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency Alexander Neradko reported. “Mursekaev left the country on Tuesday, flew away from Sheremetyevo,” they said. “According to some reports, he flew from Vnukovo to Turkey, presumably to Istanbul.” Neradko, speaking at the State Duma, said that Mursekayev had been summoned to a special meeting due to flight delays, but he did not attend. "I stopped answering my phone calls," Neradko said. "I suppose that he is no longer on the territory of the Russian Federation." Then the sources of RBC confirmed that "Mursekaev and his family left the country", having flown to Istanbul.
On the morning of September 27, Mursekaev was supposed to appear at a special meeting in the State Duma and pay 50 million rubles for the airline's operating expenses from his personal money, said the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency Neradko.
Earlier Neradko said that VIM-Avia had accumulated a huge debt for aviation fuel, because of this, on September 23, the airline had to postpone 15 of its flights indefinitely. On Monday 25 September, it delayed 20 more scheduled flights and canceled all charter flights. In addition, the remaining flights of VIM-Avia had to be moved to Vnukovo, because Domodedovo (the airline's home airport) refused to refuel its planes on credit. Despite all the problems with paying for fuel, the airline continued to sell tickets for its flights.
Neradko also stated that according to the results of the last financial audit of VIM-Avia in 2016, the airline had no problems. Russian President Vladimir Putin reacted harshly to his words. He demanded the development of new airline audit procedures that would better identify financial problems. He also told Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov about a "complete service inconsistency" and criticized Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who oversees transport, for not coping with the situation.
At a meeting with the government, the head of state harshly criticized the situation around VIM-Avia. “We have just discussed this with the Prime Minister, I draw the attention of the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of transport: you are not paying enough attention to this industry. Not enough.“And I want to tell the minister [Maxim Sokolov]: I am announcing to you that you are not fully qualified,” the head of state addressed the head of the Ministry of Transport.
In addition, Putin criticized the ministry's criteria for preventing a crisis situation around the airline.
"We talked about this yesterday with the minister [of transport]. Maxim Yuryevich [Sokolov] told me that this company fully met all the criteria [for carriers]," Putin said at a meeting with government members. "He knows my reaction, I will not repeat [it], but in one part I will repeat: if you have developed such criteria, what are they worth?" - the President asked.
Putin demanded that Sokolov "quickly and effectively" solve the problem around VIM-Avia and submit proposals to strengthen the regulation of the air transportation sector.
TASS, September 27
Due to delays in VIM-Avia flights, on September 23, about three thousand people were tortured, and due to the cancellation of all charter flights two days later - up to 80 thousand people. Irina Tyurina, press secretary of the Russian Union of Travel Industry, said that this number includes passengers of VIM-Avia who have already left for vacation or were going to it before the end of the season. Moreover, if those who were just going on vacation can get their money back for unused vouchers, then for those who have already left for it, now they need to urgently look for free planes. Rosturizm had to create an operational headquarters to return VIM-Avia's Russian clients from abroad (according to Turpomoshch, there are 43,000 of them).
Other Russian airlines agreed to operate regular flights of VIM-Avia: Ural Airlines, i-Fly, Red Wings, Nordstar, Ikar, North Wind and Yakutia. Their costs will be reimbursed from the federal budget, about 200 million rubles will be allocated for this.
As stated in the Ministry of Transport, the transportation of passengers of the regular flights of VIM-Avia will be carried out until October 15, from October 16 it will be stopped. Passengers who have tickets for a regular flight with a date from October 16, the Ministry of Transport advised them to return them to the ticket office at the place of purchase.
September 28, 10:31 Business FM reports that the co-owner of VIM-Avia, Rashid Mursekaev, is in Russia and is being interrogated by investigators. There is no confirmation of this information from other sources yet.
The owner of VIM-Avia, Rashid Mursekaev, did not leave Russia. According to Business FM, Mursekaev is being interrogated by the investigators of the UK. This was reported by sources close to the situation.The general director of VIM-Avia, Alexander Kochnev, was detained. During the night, key employees of the airline were also searched.
Business FM
September 28, 11:28 am The general director of VIM-Avia, Alexander Kochnev, and the chief accountant of the airline, Yekaterina Panteleeva, were detained as part of a criminal case, the Investigative Committee reported. The information that Mursekaev is in Russia (previously reported by Business FM) was denied in the department.
In the near future they will be charged, after which the investigation plans to petition the court to choose a preventive measure against the defendants in the criminal case.The co-owners of the company, Rashid and Svetlana Mursekaevs, hastily left the country, and according to the information available to the investigation, they are abroad. In this regard, measures are being taken to establish their whereabouts.
- But excuse me, how did he serve
in cleaning? - I did not assign him there.
Mr. Shvonder gave him a recommendation.
If I'm not mistaken.
- It is he? - He is.
Only, you bastard, it's overgrown again.
Great company
It was founded in 2002, in 2003 it acquired the first 4 aircraft.
And then it started - in 2004 the company acquired 12 Boeings and became the leading charter carrier of Russia on the most massive destinations - Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia. Then 4 more Boeings - and already flights to Western and Eastern Europe.
In 2007, VIM-avia became the number one company in the charter flights market.
In 2008, they began flying under the auspices of the UN. And in 2011, they became the first among the companies flying from the UN.
In 2013, the company carried one and a half million passengers and performed almost 9,000 flights.
In 2015, it has already transported 1,600,000 passengers and performed more than 11,000 flights, of which 10,500 are not charter, but regular.
And in 2016, there were already more than two million passengers.
And all this time they were buying, buying, buying planes.
17 Boeing and 6 Airbuses. Of which 4 are owned, and the rest are on lease ...
And suddenly, with such successes, everything suddenly ended ..
The company is bankrupt.
Yes Yes. There is such a company. A small LLC-shka owned by husband and wife Svetlana and Rashid Mursekaevs. The authorized capital of the company is 50,000 rubles (fifty thousand rubles). Do not laugh. And there is. 50,000 rubles, of which Svetlana owns 99% (49,500 rubles) and Rashid - 1%, having invested 500 (five hundred) rubles in her native enterprise. It is with these funds that the founders are responsible for all the debts of the company.
And nothing else. Well, also the property of the company. Yes, only it is not theirs, but in leasing. More precisely, all planes bought on lease formally belong to VIM-Avia, but the procedure is such that if they do not pay for them, the planes are taken back.
So, if anything, Rashid will give as much as 500 rubles. True, his conscience woke up for a second, and he wanted to pay 50,000,000 rubles from his own funds for the sins of the office, but he changed his mind in time and took to the run. But according to the law, he owes 500 rubles. Because the director and chief accountant are responsible for all the affairs of the company. But they are also not to blame. Because they say they didn't steal
So that's it.
The company is registered in the urban-type settlement Bogatye Saby, Sabinsky district of the Republic of Tatarstan, on Stroiteley street 1a. On the diagram, this street is marked with a red square. By the way, there is no house # 1a on Builders street on the Yandex map. House number 1 is there, but 1a is not.
Based on the registration data, the company expected a big takeoff.
Well, the fall should have turned out rather sickly.
And already at this stage, questions arise.
How did it happen that such a tiny firm, located, how to put it mildly, so as not to offend Rich Saba, in a distant region of Tatarstan, was entrusted with loans, leasing schemes, and licenses, in the end?
Here's the quickest path to success for a company founder:
Mursekaev Rashid Maviyaevich (born in 1965, Barnaul, Altai Territory, RSFSR, USSR) is a Russian businessman, owner of the VIM-Avia aviation company.
It did not work out with the shipping company, he took up the aviation business. Professional.
So, the matter is not just dark, but the darkest.
By the way, VIM is Viktor Ivanovich Merkulov, the very founder of the company who sold the company to Rashid. He died in 2006 at the age of 70. This man is really connected with aviation - he was an honored pilot of Russia and the founder of various airlines.
And here is the accounting statements of VIM-Avia with an authorized capital of 50,000 rubles for 2014 and 2015. For 2016, alas, I did not find:
What do we see? And we see a lot of beauty.
For example, the company's fixed assets for 2 billion 455 million rubles.
And debts - for 8 billion. Of these, 5 billion rubles of borrowed funds and almost 3 billion of debts to creditors.
Please tell me if you need to be an auditor or at least an accountant to be surprised at such a disparity?
At the same time, there are accounts receivable in the amount of 3 billion rubles. Who owes VIM-avia?
Leasing companies, whose 19 planes are not on the company's balance sheet for some reason? Or did Mursekaev himself so cleverly persuade the accountant to spend these funds in this way? Most likely, both. The balance will not tell about it - someone owes the company, and that's it. For some reason, it seems to me that VIM-avia companies should be some offshore companies. Which, well, cannot repay debts in any way! But this is so, no well-founded suspicion.
Generally, the leased property should be recorded in the fixed assets account. So everything is complicated. You can't just say about balance. So yes. It's a dark matter.
Can you imagine? All the aircraft on the company's balance sheet are worth 2.5 billion, while someone owes her 3 billion. For what? Who! The version that these are all "insolvent travel agencies" or "airports", or even passengers - can be safely dismissed. Why did the whole country suddenly owe such a huge sum to the company? All the same offshore. Probably.
Moreover, the profit from the sale of the company in 2015 amounted to only one and a half billion rubles. The net profit in 2015 was only 626 million, and in 2014 there was a loss at all. This data can be seen in the statement of financial results
And the company borrows everything and borrows money. And someone gives her everything and gives them ... In 2015, however, they partially paid off their debts, but also borrowed again.
For what?
Unclear.
Obviously not on airplanes. Because they did not add to the balance sheet, unlike debts, and fixed assets even decreased by 500 million.
Apparently, they were frolicking with borrowed funds. Here and there ...
As a result, debts of 8 billion rubles accumulated already in 2015, which it was no longer possible to repay.
And what happened there in 2016-2017 is still unknown.
Probably something terrible.
As a result, the founder got the very "extra" 50 million rubles, which he wanted to give to save the company, which he himself drove into debt, and apparently not the only ones. And the company has another 2 billion rubles in loans.
Does anyone really think that all this was done by a hired director and, moreover, an accountant?
Today, they write, the company already has a debt of 10 billion rubles, which they owe to credit institutions, lessors, airports, and fuel filling complexes. And even if all the property of the company is sold, it will be impossible to cover these debts.
I wouldn't be surprised if Mursekaev is sunbathing on his island now.
I wonder if auditors saw these glaring imbalances in 2014? And the tax authorities? And the creditors weren't interested in the state of affairs in the company, where they generously poured money? Did the banks issuing loans care? And what about leasing companies?
How did it happen that no one noticed that the company had accumulated debts in the amount of its annual sales proceeds?
And the funny thing is that our founders are not responsible for anything. They are not guilty.
And then it turns out that the director and the accountant too. They paid regularly to the budget and salaries.
Everything else seems to be an internal affair of OOO-shki.
Even a criminal case is impossible.
Whats up? Fraud? Theft?
Who cheated whom? Who was robbed? Well, except for passengers stuck on their routes
Lenders? So those are themselves to blame. These are their "risks".
Prove.
I'm afraid they won't. And the city of Londongrad will acquire new tenants with millions of accounts in foreign banks
A month before the collapse of the aviation business, Rashid Mursekaev's consulting firm was bankrupted by his acquaintance Sergei Galan, and Mursekaev's daughter sold her fuel company to Galan.
Investigators in the VIM-avia case are trying to find out how the co-owners brought the airline to collapse and where they could have hidden their assets and money. It is not excluded that Rashid Mursekaev guessed about the imminent collapse of the aviation business and was withdrawing assets ahead of time, including through relatives and trusted persons. 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 had been created to manage the carrier's finances had gone bankrupt. Both stories involved the Mursekaevs' longtime business partner Sergey Galan.
Strong family business ties
Most of Rashid Mursekaev's firms are tied to the family. Even in "VIM-avia" the main owner is not him, but his wife Svetlana. His two sisters, for example, owned companies operating in the real estate market.
And in 2014, the daughter of a businessman also went into business. Anna Ambrosova (Mursekaeva), in her fourth year at MGIMO, founded the FT International fuel company. Two years after its creation, FT International 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 ran a large maritime hub of Russia - the Far Eastern Shipping Company.
Presumably, the daughter's fuel company made money, including 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 the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations for extinguishing forest fires and for observation flights. VIM-avia, on the other hand, needed it as a transshipment 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 by selling fuel.
- The main income there is refueling helicopters and airplanes, - says Boris Rybak, head of the consulting company "Infomost".
Despite the good financial performance, in August of this year Anna Ambrosova and her husband unexpectedly decided to sell FT International. Interestingly, the airline of his father by that time was just beginning to have problems with debts for aviation kerosene. If we assume that the Mursekaevs guessed about an imminent collapse and were preparing to flee abroad, then this step looks like getting rid of Russian assets. Especially considering the personality of the buyer. It was 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 Technopolis, controlled by him, bankrupted the very company of the Mursekaevs, which originally owned the Bratsk airport. We are talking about "Invest Holding". The Mursekaevs created it 10 years ago to manage assets and securities, in a word, for the management and operational support of 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 certain obligations to Technopolis on time. The court materials do not say what exactly Invest Holding owes.
Offshore latitudes
The investigators may also be interested in the family's foreign assets. At one time, the airline was 20% owned by a Liechtenstein-based firm called Hercules Partners Fund. This may indicate, at least, that the Mursekaevs have connections there, and at the most, 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 firm called Aloma S.A. Nikolay Ambrosov is its beneficiary. The investigation will have to find out whether the company is really controlled by Mursekaev's son-in-law or simply by his namesake. For this, a request can be sent to Luxembourg through Interpol.
Aloma has chosen the largest French Credit Agricole as its correspondent bank. "Correspondent bank" means that all settlements were made 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.
Experts split
Some experts say that this entire path of bankruptcies, changes of owners and offshore companies could serve to withdraw assets. The Mursekayevs understood that the airline could soon come to a cap, and prepared the ground for a withdrawal. Thus, Kirill Kabanov, chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, is sure that the owners of VIM-Avia did not plan to save the airline.
- The VIM-avia owners 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 Mursekayevs transferred most of the banks' funds abroad. And this process began not now, but about three years ago, when the owners began to issue loans in large Russian banks, Kabanov said.
- There are questions to the supervisory authorities, which poorly controlled the movement of funds from the bank accounts of the airline, - said the head of the NAC.
However, other experts believe that the Mursekayevs did not plan to leave the country in haste. According to the expert, editor-in-chief of the magazine "Air Transport Review" 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 in the high season.
- The owners have not calculated their financial capabilities. The money that the airline received for 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: the Mursekayevs hoped that they would be supported by banks with loans, and Domodedovo airport would continue to serve on loans.
“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 survivability of the company and did not plan to leave Russia in advance.
Flew away, but did not promise to return
Whether the Mursekayevs planned to leave the country or not, they did it. According to the UK, the family flew out of Russia early 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 the previous article about "VIM-Avia" suggested that the family could move from Turkey to the UAE, Great Britain or Uzbekistan.
They still have some real estate assets in Russia. So, Svetlana Mursekaeva is registered in an apartment two steps from the Arbat. Shares in this apartment are owned by Mursekaev's son Rashid and daughter Anna. The apartment building in Skatertny Lane was built at the beginning of the last century, and in the 2000s it was restored and made a club house. Now it has only 12 apartments, each with an average of 200 square meters and a price of at least $ 200 million.
From the Arbat, the children of the Mursekaevs traveled through Moscow traffic jams to their place of study. Both entered MGIMO. Moreover, Rashid was recommended for enrollment with only 65 points for the USE in the Russian language.
Mursekaev Jr., unlike his sister, has not yet finished his studies. On the way to university, he sometimes breaks traffic rules. He is reckless, drives in the oncoming lane 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 courts. True, it does not say to whom exactly Rashid did not give way - an ambulance or the police.
Life on the judicial basis counted four fines in the amount of 18 thousand. He did not pay them on time, which is why the amount of the fine doubled and fell on the guy as a debt burden.
In this sense, Mursekaev Jr. followed in his father's footsteps. Problems for 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 in 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 had time 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 do not intend to add more fuel to the debt. And in August-September, all departments began to file claims against VIM-avia: Rostransnadzor, Rosaviatsia, Rostrud, the Prosecutor General's Office, the Investigative Committee.
Rostransnadzor blamed the company for violating the terms and conditions of aircraft maintenance. The Prosecutor General's Office and Rostrud discovered space - more than 200 million - wage arrears.
And the Investigative Committee generally opened a criminal case on fraud against the accountant and the 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 inflicted on at least 2,997 passengers. In total, more than 40 thousand passengers were stuck at 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 is in charge of transport, that he was not coping with the situation. And he 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.
Full name of the company: Limited Liability Company "Airline" VIM-Avia"Is a Russian company with headquarters in Moscow and a base airfield at Domodedovo. 100% of the shares belong to the spouses Rashid and Svetlana Mursekaev. Airline specialization " VIM-Avia»- charter and regular domestic and international passenger transportation. In 2010, the company's air fleet consisted of 11 foreign-made aircraft, old domestic aircraft were removed from flights.
Contact Information
The site of the company: www.vim-avia.com
Contact phone number for consultation, ordering and booking tickets: 8-800-700-0-757 (for calls within Russia)
The central office of the VIM-Avia company is located at: Moscow, st. Novokhokhlovskaya, 23, building 1.
International company designations
IATA code: NN
ICAO code: MOV
Internal code: NN
Company management
Airline CEO: Kochnev Alexander Yakovlevich
Airline history
The history of the company begins in 2002, it was named after its first head Viktor Ivanovich Merkulov (died in 2006). Airline « VIM-Avia»Is considered one of the largest charter companies in Russia, part of regular flights in 2010 was only 32.4% of the total passenger traffic. Over the past few years, the company's management has been paying great attention to domestic flights. In 2011, the company opened flights to many cities of the Russian Federation, including Petropavlosk-Kamchatsky, Magadan, Barnaul, Novosibirsk and other settlements. During 2009, the number of transported passengers exceeded 1 200 thousand people. In some major cities, the number of regular departures has been increased to twice a day. Airline "VIM-Avia" makes regular and charter flights to Barcelona, \u200b\u200bBasel, Rimini and Thessaloniki.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has allocated two aircraft from the Rossiya squadron, which serves top officials of the state, for the transportation of passengers of the VIM-Avia airline from Antalya, Turkey. "The special flight unit" Russia "on behalf of the President of Russia will send two Tu-214 aircraft to Antalya for the removal of passengers of the airline" VIM-Avia "- press secretary of the presidential administration Elena Krylova 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 served at the Vnukovo airport.
Also on Friday, President Putin signed a decree punishing the Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov for the crisis that has arisen with the removal of passengers from foreign resorts due to the debts of the VIM-Avia airline. "To declare a disciplinary sanction in the form of incomplete official compliance with the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation M. Yu. Sokolov," says the text of the document published on Friday, September 29, on the official Internet portal of legal information. The decree notes that the collection was announced at the suggestion of the government.
The head of state announced the disciplinary measures taken against Sokolov on September 27 at a meeting of the cabinet of ministers. “And I want to tell the minister: I am announcing to you about incomplete official compliance. If you cope with this situation quickly and efficiently, then Dmitry Anatolyevich and I will think about what to do with this incomplete official correspondence. If you do not manage, then we will also think about it, ”Putin said then (quoted by RIA Novosti).
The President of Russia was surprised by Sokolov's explanations that VIM-Avia met the requirements that apply to 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 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 government's transport industry. “I would like to draw the attention of the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of transport: you do not pay enough attention to this industry, not enough. Maybe you are overwhelmed 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 VIM-Avia, as well as prepare proposals for resolving problems in the industry as a whole.
The total debt of VIM-Avia for services, fuel, airport and ground support of flights is about 1.3 billion rubles, according to the order of the Russian government. “The Prime Minister signed a decree on allocating budgetary allocations to the Federal Air Transport Agency in the amount of 98 million rubles to provide comprehensive servicing of VIM-Avia aircraft from September 28. Our main task at the moment is 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
Difficulties of tourism
Tour operators are ready to finance the transportation of VIM-Avia passengers to resting places for airlines with a departure date before October 29, TASS reports, citing a source familiar with the situation. According to him, tour operators are planning to pay airlines for carriers to take their clients, whom VIM-Avia was supposed to bring to resorts.
“Tour operators want to pay for re-delivery and take on a guarantee that they will pay for it for those passengers who have to fly after October 16, when there will be no VIM-Avia flights. And until October 16, the export will be issued from non-budgetary sources, - said the agency's interlocutor. "The depth of these shipments is until October 29th." He added that "it can be any airlines, 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 estimate the volume of financial losses of operators and tourists, since the situation may still change.
Tatiana Kruglova, PR manager of TUI, in an interview with Forbes explained 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 airline. Basically, this is 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 quickly looking for alternative transportation for our clients, ”she said.
Director of the department of marketing, sales and work with agencies of the tour operator ICS Travel Valeria Romanenkova, in turn, explained that the tour operator did not plan a program with VIM-Avia for the winter season, and according to the summer program, the last two flights remained 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 takes a large percentage of transportation, someone has already planned a winter season with it. Of course, it will not be easy for them, since many of them are selling with depth. But, as it seems to me, at a time when summer programs are already over, and winter has not yet started, it is possible to find additional capacities from other carriers, ”Romanenkova is sure.
Escape of the owners and interrogation "without sleep or 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 funds to continue working. VIM-Avia stopped charter flights, but continues to operate regular flights. Other airlines have joined in the removal 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 embezzlement case. The co-owners of the company, Rashid and Svetlana Mursekaevs, fled the country, now the UK is determining where they are.
The chief accountant of VIM-Avia, Ekaterina Panteleeva, at 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 a very detailed testimony, explaining the reasons for the incident. But, of course, she does not recognize any thefts. This is absurd, ”said the lawyer. Pavlovskaya said that her client arrived at the IC on September 27 at five o'clock in the evening to testify as a witness. After interrogation, they did not let her go home, and by eleven o'clock on September 28 she was detained.
“Since the interrogation as a witness lasted almost the entire night, without sleep or food, Panteleeva asked to postpone her interrogation as a suspect. It is expected to take place tomorrow morning, ”concluded the lawyer. According to her, the investigation will go to court with a petition on the measure of suppression of her client on September 29. Then the issue of the arrest of VIM-Avia CEO 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 (fraud on an especially large scale) on the fact of embezzlement of passengers' funds by airline officials.
Who will pick up the assets
In January-August 2017, VIM-Avia transported 1 million 834 thousand passengers (10th place among Russian airlines, an increase of 31% compared to the same period in 2016), the average percentage of occupancy of passenger seats -76.1%. The airline ranks 11th in the country in terms of cargo and mail transportation (11,700 tons).
The airline's revenue in 2016 was 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, VIM-Avia's fleet consists of 23 aircraft: 12 Boeing 777s (leased in 2015-2017), four each Airbus A319 and Boeing 757, two Airbus A330 and one Boeing 767. Average age aircraft - 19 years. In July 2017, the company signed a lease agreement for 15 new Russian MS-21 aircraft.
The main owner is Svetlana Mursekaeva, she owns 99% of the shares of VIM-Avia, her husband Rashid - 1%. Svetlana and Rashid Mursekaevs are wanted. According to Interfax, the spouses may be in Turkey.
Aeroflot is not interested in the assets of VIM-Avia, the airline said, commenting on the information published in a number of media outlets about the beginning of the struggle for assets and slots of VIM-Avia between market participants. Aeroflot refutes any speculation of journalists that the company is waging any struggle for the assets of VIM-Avia. Aeroflot is not interested in planes, route network, or other assets of VIM-Avia, the message says.
