News

1 July 2013 the Consortium of advisors (Lufthansa Consulting, GmbH, the First Infrastructure Company - InfraONE, branch of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Institute for Scientific Research of the Civil Commercial Aviation and ARUP) headed by the law firm VEGAS LEX presented a designed model for development of the Moscow Air Hub (MAH) to the government working group chaired by the Vice prime minister I.I. Shuvalov. 

The Consortium was charged with several major tasks. First of all, the proposed model of development must guarantee a provision of high quality services to the passengers in the MAH before 2030.  This automatically calls for high rate of development of the whole infrastructure of MAH: airdrome, terminal, automobile and railway.  At the same time MAH must prove to be highly competitive on the global market of air services including the extremely competitive market of international transit.  Therefore, the advisors gave special priority to the analysis of international experience related to development of multiple airport hubs, the most effective mechanisms of control and development of infrastructure, attraction of extra-budgetary resources of finance etc. 

The advisors analyzed the three scenarios of development of estimated figures regarding the passenger flow in MAH based on the forecasts of growth of the GDP made by the Ministry of Economic Development before 2030.  The advisors and members of the working group performed an in-depth analysis and chose a so called basic scenario with the passenger flow of 179 million of passengers per year by 2030.  Under such scenario the expected passenger flow will increase three times in comparison to the traffic flow in 2012 which was about 64 million of passengers.  The annual growth rate will be 5.8% which exceeds the air carriage development trend of European countries by several times, however it will not result in saturation of the air carriage market in MAH by 2030.  At the present time the MAH is among the best 10 air hubs in the world.

Some steps aimed at removing current infrastructure restrictions of the capacity should be taken in order to reach the esimated traffic flow by 2030 one: airdrome infrastructure of MAH (by 2021 the existing infrastructure will be unable to provide for more than 119 million passangers a year), the motor way and rail way infrastructure (will hit its overload of 86,1 million passengers a year by 2017), terminal infrastructure (the limit of 83.9 million passengers a year by 2017). 

However, the uppermost and major restraint is a capacity of the integrated system of airspace management of the MAH, which is currently capable of providing not more than 93 million passengers a year. The capacity will increase stepwise and reach the figure of 143.9 million passengers a year, provided all the measures envisioned in the modernization programme of the integrated system of airspace management will be implemented in 2016-2020. 

In order to remove the indicated restraints the Consortium of advisors offered to implement around 25 investment projects aimed at development of transport infrastructure, to construct 1 additional independent runway (apart from the runway-3  which is to be put into operation by 2017 in Sheremetyevo). 

In order to reach the figures of the basic scenario the advisors offered the options of construction of a new airport (the so called "forth point"), development of minor aeroports of MAH and adjoining regions and allocation of air traffic to the neighboring regional air hubs.  As for finance of the relevant measures the consortium devised several schemes designed with regard to different investment and legal options of structuring the investment projects, the capital investments of which range from 320 to 511 billion of roubles. 

In view of the above apart from state budget it will be necessary to attract other sources of finance including different schemes of the Public Private Partnership:  state guarantees, concession and investment agreements, lifecycle contracts, project finance by state leverage, creation of SPV, co-financing, pledge, etc. 

Currently the Consortium of advisors in co-operation with the working group for the development of the MAH focuses on the finalization of the figures and relevant measures. 

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On December 27, 2012 the Working group of the Government of the RF for the development of Moscow Air Hub elected the Consortium of advisors headed by the law firm Vegas Lex.  The Consortium includes Lufthansa Consulting, GmbH, the First Infrastructure Company - InfraONE, branch of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Institute for Scientific Research of the Civil Commercial Aviation and ARUP.