Why aren’t Planes Flying? The State and Prospects of the Affordable Cargo Services Market of Russian Airlines

Abstract

The Russian cargo segment of the aviation market, in comparison with the passenger one, relatively successfully survived the period of “pandemic” restrictions in 2020, demonstrating a slight decrease in the main indicators. The key problems of the studied sphere of air transportation are caused by the monopolization of cargo services at airport terminals, a reduction in the number of wide-body passenger aircraft, as well as the negative impact of “pandemic” factors. In fact, the demand for airport cargo handling services from airlines, arising as a consequence of the demand for air carrier cargo services from end users of services, generates a paradoxical situation in which the cost of the transport process itself for moving cargo performed by the airline is lower than the cost of related cargo services of transport terminals. The results of the accomplished work showed a quantitative and qualitative relationship between the cost of “handling” services of transport terminals and cargo tariffs of Russian airlines, and also revealed the degree of interdependence of the cargo potential of the aviation market from the share of the wide-body fleet in the structure of the fleet of domestic airlines.