Despite aging fleets and a shortage of pilot flying time, Russian airlines boast one of the world’s best safety records on passenger flights, Russia Journal reported.
Twenty years ago, there were 700-900 deaths a year on Russian passenger flights. In 1999 there were 43. Total passengers carried also declined during this period: from 140 mn to 20 mn passengers a year.
Alexei Mayorov, safety inspection chief at Transaero airlines told Russia Journal that, on regular flights, Russia’s safety record is twice as good as the world average. Mayorov said that pilot-training and strict safety requirements inherited from Soviet times have helped to keep safety standards high. State aviation officials also attribute the improvement in passenger safety to increased government regulation in the licensing of airlines.
Between 1991 and 1993, dozens of new airlines were formed with little or no regulation, and 1994 was a horrible year for passenger safety. But, since that time, regulation has improved safety records.
Russia’s flagship airline,. Aeroflot-Russian International Airlines, has announced that it wants to overturn a prohibition on smoking during its flights to the United States. The airline condemned the ban as an infringement of its legal rights, Reuters reported. “The rules contradict the norms and principles of international law,” the carrier said in the statement. “It can also be seen as an intrusion into the economic activities of foreign companies outside the United States.”
Russia has one of the highest rates of tobacco use in the world. According to the Russian Health Ministry, more than 50% of men and 25% of women smoke. Aeroflot, one of the few major international airlines to maintain smoking zones, operates flights on Western aircraft to several US destinations. The airline complained that most of its US routes do not turn a profit. Last year, Aeroflot banned smoking on flights under two hours as part of an effort to bring it in line with standards of other major world carriers.
Train fares on domestic railways increased 25% on September 10. Thus, the average ticket in an SV sleeping compartment will cost over R700 per person (including all additional services like meals and linen).
After many years of construction, Moscow’s Luzhnetsky bridge has been reopened. The ceremony began with Trolleybus #28 breaking in the 1185 meter long bridge’s reconstruction. The two tiered bridge has a metro station (Sparrow Hills) on its lower level. As such, it is the world’s only metro station above water, although it has been closed since 1984. The metro station’s reconstruction will be completed in 2001.
Meanwhile, yet another metro station—Akademika Yangelya, in the South Butovo district (the gray line) —was opened in the Russian capital.
No other stations are to be opened in the foreseeable future. The construction of the downtown station Sretensky Boulevard, near Chistye Prudy, has been frozen due to a shortage of funds. The same goes for the planned stations Trubnaya, Dostoyevskaya, Mariyina Roscha, Mitino, Strogino, and a number of others.
There is one measure which could help metro builders raise much-needed funds for construction: cut the number of passengers exempted from paying metro fares. It costs the system R660 million a year to give a “free ride” to the 275,000 employees of the City Housing Inspectorate, the City Land Committee and deputies of the Moscow City Duma. Servicemen, special service operatives and pensioners (to name just these few) are also entitled to a free ride in the metro.
While pensioners will likely keep this “perk,” City Duma deputies can well afford the metro’s fare of R5 per ride.
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