MOSCOW, November 6. /Corr. Nadezhda Gerashchenko/. The Fund “Turpomosch” cannot be involved in a situation the cessation of flights to Egypt. This was announced by Director of the Association “Association of tour operators in outbound tourism “Turpomosch” Oleksandr Osaulenko, commenting on further steps of the Fund after the statement of the President on support for the recommendations of the NAC to suspend flights to Egypt to ascertain the causes of the crash of Airbus A321.
“This is not a situation of “Turpomoschi”. The Fund is activated only if the operator was insolvent. It (indicated by the NAC and head of state – approx. ed.) an emergency is to respond to the emergencies Ministry, which deals with the evacuation of citizens”, – said Osaulenko.
However, the Association will surely participate in the process of removing the Russians, as has information about the number of Russians and has experience in their evacuation, assured the head of “Turpomoschi”.
“We summarize all the information, we have a direct connection to the community tour operator and travel agent. We have a similar experience – emergency evacuation of a fairly large number of Russian citizens from abroad. The experience that we have, I hope, will be useful,” said Osaulenko. “Turpomosch” will be able to help law enforcement agencies to estimate the number of boards for export. In addition, the Association will be able to bring to travelers the necessary information to contact their relatives in Russia via a network of travel agencies.
Speaking about the risks of bankruptcies of tour operators in a situation-stop flights to Egypt, Osaulenko said, “I would not like to guess anything in this regard”. “Of course, for the tourism industry it will be quite a serious blow”, – said the head of “Turpomoschi”. However, he believes that now the main thing – the safety and health of citizens, so the question of the economy of the industry is not in the foreground.
About “Turpomoschi”
The main objective of the Association “Turpomosch”, created in August 2012, is providing emergency assistance to Russian tourists abroad, found themselves in an emergency situation by the fault of the tour operator. Membership in the organization is mandatory for all tour operators of the Russian Federation, the selling of vouchers abroad, every year they are required to pay into the compensation Fund 0,1% from volume of sales of tours, but not less than 100 thousand rubles. Now, the Fund accumulated 207 million rubles.
A substantial portion of the Fund was used in the summer of 2014, which was followed by an avalanche of bankruptcies of tour operators. According to estimates of the organization, assistance was provided to more than 40 thousand people, and the amount of the costs of their evacuation has exceeded 293 million rubles, or an average of 7.5 thousand rubles per tourist.
Disaster in Egypt
The A321 aircraft to the Russian airline “Kogalymavia” carrying out flight 9268 Sharm El-Sheikh to St Petersburg, crashed on 31 October after about half an hour after departure, 100 km South from the administrative centre of province Northern Sinai city of El Arish, near the settlement of El Hasna. In total the plane was 217 passengers and seven crew members, none survived.
