The Volga Transport Prosecutor’s Office opened cases of administrative violations against five airlines after the collapse at Nizhny Novgorod’s Strigino Airport in early November. The leaders of S7 Airlines, Pobeda, Red Wings, Utair and NordStar were submitted by the Nizhny Novgorod transport prosecutor. This follows from a letter from Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Nikolai Vinnichenko to Minister of Transport Vitaly Savelyev (Izvestia has it).
“It was established that due to adverse weather conditions, 106 aircraft flying to the city of Moscow landed at the nearest alternate airfields. Strigino Airport, through which scheduled flights were also operated, received 40 aircraft with more than 4 thousand passengers, which exceeded its capacity,” the document says.
The infrastructure of the airfield, including the number of parking lots, ladders and equipment, was not designed to simultaneously serve such a number of arriving aircraft of 12 airlines, so they were served in turn, Izvestia was previously told in the press service of Nizhny Airport.
As a result, passengers were forced to sit on planes for four to nine hours without food or water. Numerous violations of consumer rights were committed by S7 Airlines, Pobeda, Red Wings, Utair and NordStar – they did not provide drinks, hot meals, a hotel, information about the reasons for the flight delay and the planned departure time, follows from the letter.
For example, the Pobeda plane, flying from Krasnodar to Moscow, with 175 passengers on board, was at the airfield for more than seven hours, and after disembarking, the citizens were also not provided with drinks and hot meals for more than 14 hours.
Pobeda does not fly to Nizhny, so there are no company representatives there, nor the ability to provide food and drinks, especially in the conditions of collapse, when dozens of planes landed there at the same time, a source close to the company told Izvestia.
In S7, Izvestia was told that the limited number of airstairs and staff at the airport did not allow for the prompt delivery of passengers to the terminal building. The airline fulfilled its obligations to passengers to the extent possible and as far as the airport infrastructure allowed: more than 200 passengers were provided with food on board, the carrier accommodated the same number of people in hotels, more than 700 people were provided with drinks and meals while waiting for departures.
“Due to the disruptive situation at the airport, it was extremely difficult to predict the exact time of delays. But as information came in, it was broadcast by the crew on board, as well as through the airport’s public address system and reflected on the information boards,” said S7 Group spokeswoman Tamara Nikiforova.
Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:
Cork dispute: air collapse in Nizhny Novgorod turned into five cases
Source: IZ
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
