Aeroflot and Alitalia are looking for a compromise

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   It is already been a week since flights between Moscow and Milan have virtually stopped operating. They were stopped on the 1st of November because of a lack of permission for flights of ‘Aeroflot’ and ‘Alitalia’ from the airline authorities of both countries. The reason for such a conflicting situation was in the breakdown of negotiations about new flights. In the Moscow representative office of Alitalia a BANKO correspondent was told that the airline company wanted the right to operate the early flight from Sheremetyevo at 7:20, but said permission was not granted. This provoked the return measure from the Italian side, the result of which being that it is possible to now fly to Milan only with a change. Irina Dannenberg, the head of the press-service of ‘Aeroflot’ said: ‘At the moment there are negotiations at intergovernmental level between representatives of the airline company’s aimed at resolving the issue. I hope that a compromise will be reached in the nearest future’.
   Meanwhile, the question of the canceling of the flight is widely discusses at the ‘Kurilka’ forum of the professional travel portal www.tourdom.ru: and according to the information provided by specialists of the travel business, the flight is now carried out via Frankfurt, Vienna, Paris, Zurich and Rome by ‘Aeroflot’, Alitalia, Lufthansa and other airline companies. The increased expense of redirecting the affected tourists is borne by the carriers. ‘Our clients were put on a different flight without need for additional payment’, says Marianna Medvedeva, deputy general director of ‘Lanta tour voyage’. ‘Fortunately, our main group programs are starting in Rimini, Naples, Rome while Milan is an exhibition tourism, fitness-sector and business trip destination’. At the same time Aleksander Morozov, head of the flight department of ‘PAC Group’ stressed: ‘Between cities there is established business traffic and it is not the price that is important but the convenience. Now from the point of view of convenience it has got a lot worse.’ Furthermore, the work of operators is further complicated by the lack of solid information about the flight cancellations several days in advance: ‘Flights are cancelled on a day by day basis and no one can say whether they will take off on the following day or not’, says Aleksander Morozov from ‘PAC Group’. ‘The only thing that we can recommend is to advise holiday-makers to use any airlines in the nearest future apart from ‘Aeroflot’ and Alitalia’.
   The market players interviewed by BANKO noted that official complaints in relation to the inconvenience caused have not yet been submitted by tourists. However, Lubov Chistyakova, managing director of ‘Mondo tours’ added: ‘We are ready to accept any complaints and hand them over to the air carriers’.