Istanbul is closed for Tatarstan citizens: ‘You can buy a ticket but you cannot fly’
Only the citizens of Turkish Republic and transit passengers can fly to the Turkey's largest city from the airport of Kazan and Nizhnekamsk Begishevo
Russian citizens temporarily are not having the opportunity to go on holiday to Turkey. As Realnoe Vremya found out, Turkish citizens and other foreigners, as well as transit passengers, those for whom Istanbul will be the change place, can easily get flights to Istanbul from Kazan airport and Nizhnekamsk airport Begishevo.
Aeroflot resumes flights from 20 July
As it became known on the weekends, after the coup attempt in Turkey the citizens of Russia are temporarily unable to fly to this country. The information appeared on the website of the Federal Air Transport Agency – Rosaviatsiya.
'Due to the aggravation of the political situation in the Republic of Turkey, the transportation of the citizens of the Russian Federation to the cities of Turkey by regular flights of Russian and Turkish airlines are temporarily suspended. The suspension will be valid until the clarification of the political situation. However, the airlines of both countries will continue to transport the Russian citizens from Turkey,' states the department.
On 18 July, Aeroflot twitted that the passengers of flights between Turkey and Russia with departure dates from 16 July to 20 July inclusively can return the tickets or to reschedule the date of departure on a later date, until 20 August of 2016, without penalty. The passengers with tickets for later dates (after 20 July) will be accepted for transportation on the dates, specified in the ticket. Earlier, on 16 and 17 July, Aeroflot canceled 10 flights from Moscow to Istanbul and Antalya and back.
Turkish Airlines may ignore the ban
Realnoe Vremya decided to find out what's going on with the Tatarstan flights to Turkey. As Azamat Sabirov, Director General of the AVT Agency, told, now the evacuation of Russian citizens from Istanbul is taking place: 'The task was to evacuate them on 16-17 July. Rosaviatsiya does not let the Russian citizens to Turkey, they make returns. On 16 July, the flight was delayed by two or five hours. Now the flights are carried out in usual mode, but there is the oral instruction to the border guards — only those can fly who have residence permit in Turkey or those who fly transit. The citizens of Russia, who fly directly to Turkey, in any city, are not allowed.'
At the same time, according to Sabirov, the ticket return process in the case of Turkish Airlines is going smooth: 'We should pay tribute to the Turkish airlines, in case of such situations they return the money without problems. In general, Turkish Airlines are trying to fly whatever happens. They are the first who after the terrorist attack and the coup attempt resumed flights. The airline tries to do everything according to the schedule.'
However, according to Sabirov, for the airline itself the situation with the current ban for the Russian citizens to travel to Turkey is unlikely to be critical: 'Mainly, the flight Kazan—Istanbul is used by transit passengers. They are about one-third. Another third part is the Turkish citizens. For Turkish Airlines, Kazan is mainly a transit point — they didn't plan the traffic flow directly to Istanbul. Even the Turkish workers need more the transit flights, so the main focus for the airline — filling with transit passengers.
'Those who flew directly to Istanbul, they were the maximum of 10 people in a flight, it is not more than 5-6%. Many regular passengers have residence permit in Turkey, so for the Turkish Airlines the current ban is insignificant. The only thing that may affect — in the context of current events in Turkey many passengers may be frightened and prefer another airline, because they will be afraid of situations at the airport Ataturk. In general, the Turkish Airlines hope that everything will be okay and the current events have affected little.'
AtlasGlobal offers to fly to Turkey from August
A similar situation is in Nizhnekamsk: there are flights but it is impossible to fly. In the press service of the airport Begishevo it was said: 'At the moment, the transfer of the Russian citizens to Turkey is temporarily suspended. In the near future there will be the only return flights of Russian citizens to their Homeland, and the flights to Turkey are only for the transportation of Turkish and foreign citizens to Turkey.
Today (on 18 July – editor's note), at 3.39 am in Begishevo landed the flight КК6789 of the AtlasGlobal airline from Istanbul. On the board there were 211 people. The return flight to Istanbul departed at 4.20 am. On the board there were 124 passengers (there were no Russian citizens among them).
The resumption of regular flights will depend on how soon the political situation in Turkey is stabilized, and how quickly after that the aviation authorities will remove the ban on regular flights.'
On the 'hot line' of AtlasGlobal airlines, which operates flights from Istanbul to Nizhnekamsk airport Begishevo, they said that currently there is a ban on the departure of the Russians.
There is no danger for the tourists
The situation is following: nobody is hurring the citizens of Russia who is on vacation in Turkey now to go home. The source close to the structures of the Federal Tourism Agency said that the evacuation is not urgent: 'The resort area is not declared dangerous to stay – everything is all right there. The tourists continue to rest. Those who returned from Turkey are flying according to the bought tickets, the schedule. There won't be flights to Turkey — the Rosaviation has forbidden to do it. Those who have already bought tickets, will not fly, except for some categories of citizens.
The tourists from Tatarstan flew through Moscow, because there are no charter flights from Tatarstan. On the website of the Federal Tourism Agency there is the list of operators that sell tours to Turkey, they have 'hot lines'. There are people who are now in Turkey as tourists, they want to depart earlier than planned, the matter is decided with the tour operator in working order.'