Anyone interested in flying between Ukraine and Germany lately may have noticed that there are fewer flights - less than half the number there were just a few months ago. The reason is that the German and Ukrainian governments are deadlocked over the terms of their bilateral aviation protocols, which came due for re-negotiation at the end of October.
All countries have bilateral treaties governing aviation, but these are just a framework. It's protocols that determine things like the number of flights, number of passengers and types of planes that can be used, Ulrich Grunenburg, an economics counseller at the German embassy, told the Observer.
Under the protocols in force until October 30th, each side could schedule sixteen flights per week (there and back). Germany allotted its share to Lufthansa (seven flights between Kyiv and Frankfurt, and seven between Kyiv and Munich) and LTU, which flew twice a week to Crimea.
Ukrainian International and DneproAvia got the slots for Ukraine, Mikhail Kochibey, chief of international agreements for Ukraine's State Aviation Service, said.
Additional terms covered under the soon-to-expire protocols included restrictions on the use of large aircraft and a 2,000-passenger-per-week ceiling.
One point that the protocols left open, according to the Germans, was the number of flights that German airlines could schedule for the Munich route. The Frankfurt route was limited to once a day, but theoretically the German government could give Lufthansa as many flights as it wanted for the Munich route.
Kochubey told the Observer that no foreign airline has the right to fly the same route twice a day. Technically, this is true. Russia's Aeroflot offers a morning and evening flight every day, except Tuesday, when it offers only the morning one.
As talks to renew the protocols got under way last year, this seemingly insignificant point took up an ever larger place on the negotiations table, which eventually collapsed under its weight.
The Ukrainians wanted Germany to give up its prerogative to fly twice a day between Kyiv and Munich in return for the lifting of other restrictions, said Grunenberg.
Not so, said Kobichey. The Germans tried to get Ukraine to change its two-flights-per-day restriction and when Kyiv didn't agree, Berlin reneged on an offer to allow two more Ukrainian airlines, Ukrainian Mediterranean and Donbass Aero, to start flights to other German cities (as part of the 16 flight maximum due to Ukraine).
As a result, the Ukrainian aviation official underlined, these two airlines had to cancel flight bookings that had already been paid for.
During the three rounds of talks held in 2004, both sides advocated that they support the introduction of an "open skies" policy, which means the lifting of all restrictions.
But even here, there is a difference of opinion. The Germans says they are ready to open their skies immediately. Ukraine too, with the exception of one small cloud - the two-flight-per-day issue - which Kyiv isn't prepared to concede for another five years.
Why? "Because this would undoubtedly pose a threat to Ukraine's economic interests," reads a statement released to the public by Vladimir Maksimov, the head of Ukraine's State Aviation Service.
Germany is acting in the interest of one company, Lufthansa, says Kobichey. The battle is for control of transit traffic, which Lufthansa is currently well positioned to service. "If we let them do it, our airline business will be destroyed," he emphasized.
In five years time, Ukrainian airlines will presumably be on par with other carriers and then the skies can fully be opened.
In the mean time, Ukraine's offer to limit other restrictions is the most generous that it has made to any other country, Maksimov notes in his statement.
Another sign of Ukraine's desire to liberalize air travel is its attempts to open new flights between regional airports, said Kobichey: for example, through companies like Ukrainian Mediterranean and Donbass Aero.
But for German airlines, it's not profitable to run several flights to various cities if they can't fill the seats. Moreover, an increase in the number of overall flights is useless if there are still restrictions on the number of flights a day to popular destinations, Grunenberg argued. What travelers will pay for is the convenience to get the time they need, rather than being held up a day or more waiting for the next flight.
"We were faced with the proposition of signing an agreement that we didn't want today in exchange for a shady promise five years later," Grunenberg underlined.
As negotiations deteriorated, another seemingly minor detail popped up. On July 16th, Ukraine's Transport Ministry created a regulation, which required a country to sign a bilateral agreement to allow its planes to stay over night at Borispil airport. Germany would also have to sign such an agreement, since its Munich flight was in the evening.
"Ukraine is the only country in the world to have done such
a thing," said Grunenburg. Normally overnight space is allocated on the basis of availability. Nevertheless, while the talks were still in progress, no one actually enforced the new rule, he added.
When the protocols expired, the sides agreed to keep everything the way it was until new protocols could be signed. The new deadline would be December 14th. But Lufthansa still had to re-apply for its routes with the Ukrainian government, which now began to enforce the no-overnight-stay regulation, thus making it impossible for even the single (evening) Munich flight.
Not having anything to lose, Germany responded by reducing all flights to seven per week. When the Ukrainian carriers began to feel the pinch, Maksimov offered unofficially to again suspend the overnight rule if the flights were put back at 16. The Germans wanted things official, and when they didn't get it, they moved the deadline back to January 31st, in the hope that the country's political situation as well as its aviation authorities would cool off in the meantime.
Maksimov's version of events more or less coincides, except that he says that the Ukrainian government refused to give Lufthansa permission for overnight stays only after the Germans reduced flights to seven per week.
Whichever side one is inclined to support, you can't help but notice that the conflict has arisen during a time of great change in Ukraine's air industry.
For starters, the State Aviation Service was only created last August, when it was transferred from the control of the Ministry of Transport's aviation department, which Maksimov also headed. During the change, the new service was given additional powers, like control over the country's air traffic controllers.
In November, the State Service for Monitoring of Aviation Safety, created in July, fired the general director of Borispil Airport, Mykola Shmatko, who had held the post since 1993. Last year, Borispil reported over Hr 42 million in profits
Also this year, Ukraine's flagship carrier, Aerosvit, launched construction of its own $80 million Terminal D. The airline will cover $24 million of total project costs. The Japanese Bank for International Cooperation has issued a $171.7 million loan to the Ukrainian government to pay for the rest, as well as other reconstruction at the airport.
The new terminal will increase capacity by 2.5 times and service other airlines as well. The estimated time of completion is March 2006.
According to Ukraine's State Statistics Committee, the number of takeoffs and landings at the airport increased by 47.7 percent in the first eight months of 2004. The number of passengers served has also risen steadily over the past few years.
As Borispil develops its position as a regional hub, international carriers can be expected to try and secure their share of the growing number of transfer passengers. The task for Ukrainian airlines is to make sure that they don't lose out as the pie grows.
|
