RI to give flight permits to two Russin airlines

Antara News, Saturday, May 1, 2010 00:52 WIB

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Transport Ministry looks set to licence two Russian airline companies to fly to Indonesia this year.

The two Russian airlines, Transaero and Aeroflot, would serve direct flights linking the two countries starting at the end of this year, Air Transport Director Tri S Sunoko said in a press statement on Friday.

Transaero which had so far been conducting Russia-Denpasar charter flights twice a week planned to also operate scheduled flights, he said.

Russia's state-owned Aeroflot meanwhile would fly from Moscow to Denpasar vice versa as of December 2010, he said.

The issuance of flight permits to the Russian airlines was part of aviation service cooperation agreed upon by the two nations at their meeting in Russia on April 29-30, he said.

"The MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) made in Jakarta some time ago has been upgraded to RoD (Record of Discussion)," he said.

The RoD contained a number of agreements related to exchange of traffic rights, code sharing arrangements, co-terminalization and aircraft leasing, he said.

Code sharing arrangements are seat sales cooperation carried out by at least two airline companies, he said.

As such, Indonesian-flag carrier Garuda could sell and promote flights to Moscow, Vladivostok, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk in Aeroflot planes, he said.

On the other hand, Aeroflot could sell connecting flights from Denpasar to Jakarta, Solo and Manado in Garuda planes, he said.