We Can Expect Slight Decrease in AZAL Ticket Prices

It can be expected, although it is not the fact that in the near future the price of air tickets in Azerbaijan will drop to the level of international standards.

President Ilham Aliyev at a meeting of the government on Monday criticized the monopoly of the national carrier AZAL in artificially inflated prices, which prevents the growth of the tourist flow.

Aliyev put forward a number of arguments that point to the invalidity of the high prices:

Domestic kerosene is cheap,

The airline receives government subsidies,

The fleet is formed from the state budget,

Airports are being built by the state.

The Ministry of Finance and Economy was instructed to develop a mechanism to counter the inflated prices.

Of course, it is possible to predict a certain decrease in the price of air tickets, but major changes should be expected without creating a highly competitive, with the participation of foreign cabbies and transparent tender basis. But the government will not do so, because it works in a closed circuit, which does not shed light on the growth and loss of state subsidies with the growth of air travel from year to year, said Turan.

The Civil Aviation Administration and the State Service for Antimonopoly Policy and Consumer Protection under the Ministry of Economy do not respond to the actions of the Azerbaijan Airlines. The Airlines from the second quarter 2014 to the present day have not offered state authorities statistics on the financial performance, so we do not know whether it is profitable.

In recent years, the growth rate of passenger traffic in Azerbaijan is impressive - 12% on average per year. In 2014, local airlines made another record in the number of passengers – 1,790,400 (+ 7.6%). The share accounts for 99.9% of AZAL passengers.

But, nevertheless, the ticket prices are not reduced with the exception of short-term actions. Though in Azerbaijan there is a number of foreign airlines flying, they all adapt to the range of cash offered by AZAL: Aeroflot Russian Airlines, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Dalavia Airways, Donbassaero Airlines, Imair Airlines, Kolavia, Russian Airlines, Air Company Scat, S7 Airlines, Ural Airlines, Uzbekistan Airways, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines and others.

Turan noted that AZAL would carry more passengers if it had a more flexible tariff regime on international routes. But, using the monopoly position, it applies high tariffs on many fronts, which has no competitors. AZAL prevents entry into the local market of some foreign airlines that provide cheap economic package, convenient for tourists, students and other categories of passengers.

A real impact on the price decline, as the world practice shows, could be provided by low cost airlines with prices much lower than those of well-known companies. For example, low cost companies can offer a flight from Paris to Madrid for 20 euros and it is normal within Europe.

High prices on domestic routes remain a big problem. They practically do not work, except in Nakhchivan. In the same Germany disliked by the President citizens travel on planes from city to city at prices of conventional intercity taxi - 20-40 euros.

CJSC Azerbaijan Airlines operates 30 aircraft to 57 destinations across Europe, the US, Asia and the CIS. AZAL fleet consists of seven Airbus A-320, four Boeing-757-200, three Airbus A-319, two Airbus A-340, two Boeing-767-300ER and two Boeing-787.

In 2015, the marketing company Skytrax nominated AZAL to the 66^th place in the ranking of the top 100 airlines in the World Airline Awards. -0-