OREANDA-NEWS  On 18 February was announced, that the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) closed the proceedings against the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia).

Earlier, exercising its antimonopoly control functions, FAS Russia found that actions of Rosaviatsia violated Clauses 2 and 5 Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition": the Agency unreasonably restricted possibilities of foreign air carriers to choose the airport of entry in the Moscow aviation node. Such actions could have resulted in unreasonable restriction of the services offered by such an airport. Rosaviatsia exercised those actions by sending notifications to the authorized Russian and foreign government agencies, in one of which the Agency "strongly recommended" an air carrier to abstain from changing the airport of entry. Rosaviatsia also suggested imposing temporary restrictions upon other air carriers to prevent them from moving their operations from one Moscow airport to another.

Rosaviatsia justified its proposals by enhancing the safety of air transportation and ensuring the high quality of passenger service.

Investigating the case, FAS Russia, however, established that the Agency, which is the competent authority for air navigation, had not seen the grounds for introducing the NOTAM system ("NOtice TO Airman" - messaging on navigation and aviation safety hazards, timely prevention of which are important for the air traffic controllers).

According to the technical experts on air traffic management, the air traffic in the Moscow aviation node is very intensive and the air navigation has a number of specific features and characteristics that affect the work of air navigation services. Air navigation experts make conclusions on the specificity of the air area and its use based on the comprehensive analysis of the Moscow aviation node in general. Growing intensity of air traffic in the Moscow aviation node depended on the overall increase of air transportation in 2008. All airports - "Sheremetyevo", "Domodedovo", and "Vnukovo" - are on equal footing, in particular, with regard to reconstruction of the airport runways. There are no restrictions on the airports' capacity: the air carriers move their operations from one airport to another, and their applications for the airport services are satisfied in full. The conclusions of technical audits of the airports performed by the air carriers are also satisfactory.

Air carriers have the right to choose the airports for their operations, and the airports are interested in attracting more air carriers. According to the FAS Russia's Commission, if the recommendations made by Rosaviatsia were implemented, it would directly restrict competition by unreasonably preventing economic activities of market participants and restricting the buyers of the goods (services) in their choice of economic entities, providing such goods (services).

It was only because the air carrier had been finally able to change the airport of entry within the planned period and the airport had not lost a new consumer of its services, that the FAS Russia Commission terminated the proceedings against Rosaviatsia. Arriving to this decision, FAS Russia was governed by Clause 2 Part 1 Article 48 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition".

In course of the case investigation, Rosaviatsia emphasized the absence of the airport capacity standards as one of the main causes of the difficult situation with the airport services.

Recently FAS Russia has investigated multiple cases on unreasonable refusals by the airports to offer airport services and ground handling to the air carriers. Still there is no official document outlining the principles for calculating airport capacity.

In this connection FAS Russia has devised the draft Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation "On Approving the Rules for Non-Discriminatory Access to the Airport Services", which will put the Russian Ministry of Transport in charge of developing the technique for determining airport capacity.