Can Russian airlines stop working?
The implementation of the plans of the Ministry of Transport on the transfer to Russia of servers for ticket sales and check-in for the flight may lead to a shutdown of domestic airlines.
This was reported in a July letter from the director of the aviation company Siberia (consisting of S7 Group) Vladimir Obyedkov to the president of the Association of Air Transport Operators Vladimir Tasun.
The application of the new rule in practice may lead to a complete shutdown of Russian airlines and a long process of switching to other booking schemes (from 2 to 4 years).
Now the three main Russian carriers have foreign providers: Sabre from Aeroflot, SITA from S7 and Amadeus from Ural Airlines. Vladimir Obyedkov is sure that domestic providers do not meet the requirements of airlines and are not able to guarantee activities in alliances (Sky Team and One World).
The Russian government is going to quickly transfer airlines to Russian IT systems due to the danger of leakage of passenger data from foreign servers. In June, the S7 had problems registering passengers due to a global failure of the SITA system, which provides IT services to air carriers.