Ready, steady, fly?

Out of the blue

The news about the opening of Turkey suddenly inspired representatives of the Tatarstan tourism industry. To be honest, a day earlier, they had expected “nothing good” from the season. So the information on Friday evening about the resumption of air flights between Russia and Turkey as well as flights to another eight countries (Cyprus, Bulgaria, the USA, Belgium Jordan, Ireland, Italy and North Macedonia) became a glimmer of hope. As the taskforce said, it is permitted to resume both regular and charter flights.

“This time, the federal authorities worked nicely: they had promised to announce the results and they did it,” says head of STEN tourist company Leonid Press. “They had promised to warn about the opening of borders beforehand, here you’re, we also had several days to get ready.”

As Press says, the tourism industry didn’t expect the borders to open earlier than on 1-5 July, and it turned out to be even better — the taskforce provided with 10 days to prepare. And large tour operators started to sell tours on Friday because “they have everything prepared”. Our interlocutor assumes that the price for these tours won’t change significantly: it will stay at April’s level, perhaps it will even go down because of a stronger euro against the dollar.

A short inspection visit of a delegation of specialists from the Russian consumer rights protection watchdog and Russian Agency for Tourism to Antalya preceded the taskforce’s sensational decision. They had been evaluating the epidemiological situation at Turkish resorts and the possibility of lifting restrictions on flights to the republic for two days. As a result, they decided to resume air communication. According to the commission, the mask regime is on, both masks and sanitisers are available, there is control over the compliance with the measures.

It isn’t harder to get infected in Turkey than in Russia

According to the WHO’s data, 5,757 new COVID-19 cases were registered in Turkey as of 18 June, 59 people died. For comparison, 17,262 people got infected on 18 June, 453 patients died. Germany and then France recently cancelled trips to Turkey.

Realnoe Vremya talked with Kazan programmer Maria Galeyeva who went to Antalya in the spring and works from there. She says that vaccination among the local population is actively carried out.

“There are specific terms for citizens of a certain age: the older generation, health workers, teachers will be vaccinated free first. Tourists aren’t included in public vaccinations. They won’t be administered a vaccine even for money. I have tried but I have been denied,” she told us. “But I have a high anti-bodies level, perhaps this is why I didn’t fall ill.

As our interlocutor explains, after the announcement of a lockdown on 15 April, Antalya was dead for three weeks: neither restaurants nor beaches, shopping malls operated. The state paid subsidies for everybody who lost a job during this period. People might go outside but only via SMS. Groceries with basic products were open. So the Turkish lockdown didn’t absolutely differ from the one in Russia last spring.

The restrictions were cancelled on 17 May. Antalya’s seashore started to be gradually filled by tourists from Ukraine and Belarus. However, prices immediately grew. It became 20% more expensive to eat in a cafe compared to the pre-quarantine times. However, prices for vegetables and meat didn’t change in the market. So the resort city now lives as usual — only with masks on and at the moment without noisy crowds of Russian tourists.

One will have to pay extra for June tours

What will happen to the tours booked in April that were cancelled when air flights were suspended?

A flight in a package will be €300-350. Prices for Turkish resorts will stay at a level of August-September 2020 but will likely go up.

Rustem Tarzimanov, head of Salavat Bureau of Tourist Services finds it is hard now to forecast prices for Turkish resorts and further actions of the taskforce because, in his opinion, they are illogical. For instance, he complains that Egypt is still closed (to be more precise, it is open but there are only several flights a week to Cairo, and it takes several hours to get to the seashore).

Indeed, representatives of the Russian side completed safety inspection at Egyptian airports. “The aviation safety reinforcement measures at airports taken by the Egypt side since 2015 allowed considerably improving their protection,” said head of the Russian Agency for Air Transport Alexander Neradko. “The decision on a resumption of flights to these cities will be made after recommendations of the Russian side to reinforce air safety measures are followed and the procedures envisaged by Russian-Egypt agreements on cooperation in civil aviation safety are carried out.”