Europe threatens to close its skies to Russian aircraft


Europe from 1 January 2005 will close its air space to Russian aircraft that are not equipped with ground proximity danger warning system. In all Russia has 2% of aircraft which don't meet this requirement. The cost of upgrading of a To-154 jet is more than 50thousand dollars. Most of our airplanes are equipped with the ground proximity danger warning system, but the latter has already outdated, said Vladlen Korovkin, a GAZETA. RU coordinator of the Federal agency for ICAO matters. The new system, although it is in an order of magnitude more expensive (its price ranges from 50 to 100 thousand dollars than the old one) allows for ground profile to be simulated and flight safety to be considerably increased. For small companies whose business is balancing on the verge of profitability because of high price growth for aircraft fuel this is too a great pleasure. Many companies will have to part with their business. And Russians seeking to get to the selected wintertime resorts will have to make use of more expensive regular flights. A threat for introduction of the EU new requirements have told on performance of the regular air carriers such as Aeroflot. Despite the fact that the company is going to upgrade the morally outdated Tu-154s it will not be possible to have the ground proximity danger warning system installed on the new generation aircraft such as Tu-104 and Il-96. The Russian aircraft factories until now have not worked out the documentation for providing the Tu-204 and Il-96 airplanes with such systems, said Valeri Okulov, the Aeroflot director general. That's why starting from 2005 Aeroflot will remove all 6 it's Il-95s from the European routes. However the Russian aircraft makers don't consider they are to blame for the problems facing carriers. All latest Il-96 airplanes including the president's aircraft and two other machines supplied to the Krasair company, have been equipped with the required safety system and we have all necessary documentation needed for the re-equipment, Alexandr Rubtsov, the Ilyushin Finance leasing company director general, told GAZETA. The system is not installed only on the aircraft assembled before 1999. But shall solve this problem. Aeroflot will have needed to contact the factory and co-ordinate the debugging diagram. The debugging cost for one Il-96 aircraft ranges between $75 and $100thousand.

Fonte: Avia.ru - 02/12/2004