UVT Aero: ‘The money was received under the market conditions… We repaid about 150 million rubles’
The Tatarstan company, established with the participation of Tatneft, reported on the return to profitability
The Tatarstan airline UVT Aero reported on their work in the first six months of 2016. As the correspondent of Realnoe Vremya found out, the leadership of the company is not going to repeat the fate of Tatarstan airline and looks with hope to the bright future — in the second year of operation they reached profitability, earned 70 million rubles, and repaid 150 out of 600 million of debt to the investors. UVT Aero is planning to develop the flights to the CIS countries and to participate further in the subsidies, which in recent times are threatened to be closed.
The revenue at 70 million and internal financing
UVT Aero, which was established to replace the bankrupt airline Tatarstan, did its first commercial flight 13 months ago – on 17 July of 2015. On 17 of August, at the press conference in Tatar-Inform, the airline reported on the performance of the company in the first half of 2016. As the General Director of UVT Aero JSC Petr Trubaev told, 'after the aviation events of not very good character' in the Republic there is no any commercial airline, and if for Begishevo it was not so crucial, but for the airport Bugulma this situation affected the worst way. The leadership of the Republic failed to attract other carriers, and in order to load this air harbour, they came up with idea to create an airline that would service the south-east of Tatarstan. The result was the creation of UVT Aero, the name of which included the abbreviation of 'south-east of Tatarstan' in Russian.
According to Trubaev, the creation of UVT Aero was invested by not Tatneft but other structures, including from Moscow. The investment volume amounted to about 600 million rubles.
In 2015, when the flights were started, the company was closed with a net loss at 120 million rubles. In the first six months of 2016, the profit amounted to 71.5 million rubles. Now the airline operates at its own expense. According to Deputy Director General of UVT Aero JSC Ildar Abaev, the total revenue in the six months amounted to about 900 million rubles.
'In support of financial stability and sustainability, I would like to add that in the first six months we repaid about 150 million rubles of debt. The money was received under the market conditions, so that means that the repayment is pre-schedule,' explained Abayev, talking about 600 million rubles invested in the company.
We would like to note that on paper the founder of the airline is a natural person — Oleg Panteleyev, a former fellow of AK Bars Aero. However, as the sources of Realnoe Vremya reported, the company is under the wing of Tatneft. This is confirmed by the fact that UVT Aero is based at the airport Bugulma, controlled by the petrochemical company.
At the moment, the company operates flights from Kazan to 15 destinations, from Bugulma – to 6, from Begishevo – to 3. Besides, this year the airline has won the tender for the transportation of children to the camps of Crimea. At the moment, 4100 passengers have been transported, on 22-23 August there will be the last flights from the Peninsula.
According to Trubaev, the company is quite compact – it employs 332 people, 90-95% out of which are the former employees of the airline Tatarstan. The average salary is 57 thousand rubles. The salary increases as the load of the pilots increases. In the fleet there are seven boards of CRJ 200 and a Bell 429 helicopter.
Subsidies for regions will live
In six months of 2016, the company performed the subsidized flights at 291 million rubles, 112.6 million of which were allocated from Tatarstan budget and 14.4 million – from other regions. The passenger load factor is 70%, in subsidized flights – 56%.
Answering to the question of Realnoe Vremya, Trubaev said that in 2017 they are planning to continue to participate in programmes for grants in the framework of the government resolution No. 1242.
The speaker also commented on the news that from 2017 the program for subsidizing flights for Volga Federal District may be closed. According to the decree of the government No. 1168, in 2014-2015 the subsidies amounted to 620 million rubles, in 2016 — to 450 million rubles.
'Such information regularly appears, including in the media and at business meetings. Maybe you have noticed – I said that we do participate in this resolution, the cost – 134 million rubles, we have already realized slightly more than a half. My personal opinion – due to the fact that a passenger of the Volga Federal District has accustomed to the program and actively use it, in my opinion, the program is unlikely to be abolished. May be, from a financial point of view, it will be changed in the direction of reduction that is taking place in the last two years.'
Trubaev proposed not to panic and noticed that, in his opinion, this subsidy program will still live.
From HC Ak Bars to the flights to the CIS countries
Deputy Minister of Transport and Roads of the Republic of Tatarstan Andrey Yegorov noted that the development of the Tatarstan airline is now a top priority on the Ministry of Transport. In a year the airline will receive international clearance and will be able to launch flights to other countries. We will remind that the new airline can carry out international transportations only after two years of work on the market. Trubaev added that most likely it concerns the CIS countries. Now there is active work on training of personnel, aircrafts and route network.
The company is also planning to launch the flight Kazan – Kaluga – Nizhniy Novgorod on conditions of co-financing, the flights to Ufa are also under consideration. It is planned to launch flights to Simferopol and Sochi all year round, as the practice has shown that these areas are in demand in wintertime as well. They are launched routinely in October this year. Besides, we operate flights from Moscow to Gelendzhik – they were originally designed only for summertime, but in the end it was decided to extend them for a longer time. The issue of buying new aircrafts is also under consideration, but it is too early to talk about the specifics.
Last season, UVT Aero was the official carrier of the football club Rubin. This season, the contract with HC AK Bars is being worked out.
'Now the issues associated with the hockey club AK Bars are in the stage of development, and in the long view we are planning with the basketball club UNICS. We are actively trying to develop these positions and this market,' said Trubaev.