MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th May, 2020) Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a video conference to address aviation industry problems amid the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Sputnik.
"There will be a meeting on the aviation industry," Peskov said.
On May 7, Putin held a meeting on support for the transportation sector, noting that the aviation industry was in a difficult situation. He said he planned to hold a separate meeting on the issue.
The Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) on Tuesday reported that the passenger flow of Russian airlines in April 2020 decreased by 91.8 percent compared to the same period last year, in January-April by 29.5 percent, while the Aeroflot flagship carrier reduced its transportation in April by 95.2 percent.
Putin earlier suggested allocating more than 23 billion rubles ($312.1 million) to support the aviation industry affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Russian government at a meeting last Thursday adopted a draft resolution on the provision of subsidies to Russian airlines in the amount of 23.4 billion rubles to partially compensate their expenses.
The cabinet earlier also provided from its reserve fund 1.5 billion rubles to Rosaviatsiya to reimburse airlines for the costs of taking Russians home from abroad amid the coronavirus pandemic.
On March 27, amid the coronavirus pandemic, Russia stopped regular and charter flights with other countries. The exceptions are flights to take citizens home, as well as cargo, mail, sanitary and humanitarian flights, flights of empty planes for maintenance, transit flights with landing for refueling or changing crews in Russia and flights carried out in line with individual decisions of the Russian government.
Airlines also reduced domestic flights due to falling demand.
