The plaintiff alleges that Ukraine's State Service for Aviation Security Supervision failed to create equal opportunities for carriers when German Federal Office of Civil Aviation (Luftfahrt-Bundesamt - LBA) has controversially prohibited Dniproavia to operate any of its German routes.
Such an action on the part of LBA followed the negotiations between Lufthansa and Dnipropetrovsk International Airport on arranging slots for Lufthansa aircrafts' departures and arrivals at the airport. According to Sergey Tkachenko, Dniproavia Deputy Director, "The Dnipropetrovsk Airport granted 5 out of 6 flight slots requested, and asked for a time shift for the sixth slot since it conflicted with the existing Dniproavia flight on Thursdays. Consequently, a day later, on March 3, 2006, LBA had prohibited Dniproavia from servicing its route Dnipropetrovsk-Frankfurt-Dnipropetrovsk on the basis of deceptive allegations concerning Ukraine's aviation authority prohibiting Lufthansa from serving Dnipropetrovsk route. Following this, on March 8, LBA had completely prohibited Dniproavia to operate on its German routes, alleging that the Company impeded the flights of German carriers.
Sergey Tkachenko points out that "LBA acted on the grounds of unilateral and biased information received from Lufthansa and did not use any legal means to solve the problems, claimed by the German airline". "They acted recklessly and we will definitely take the legal action to protect our business and reputation", Mr. Tkachenko claims.
Ukrainian MP and lawyer Svyatoslav Oleynik believes that "Blocking access to the international routes due to unverified data received from Lufthansa sets a dangerous precedent, impeding competition and development of the national aviation market". Oleynik points out at the fact that "Such non-transparent actions may become a key factor in creating monopolies and feeding the corruption in state authorities".
Mr. Oleynik's remarks are echoed by the experts from the Private Investments Protection Association. Association's President Oleksandr Kamenets notes that "The artificially caused conflict by Lufthansa has quite clear objective of crushing the competitor and establishing the monopoly for international transportation through Dnipropetrovsk Airport. To that end, Dniproavia is getting deprived of its profitable German routes wherein the Company invested and developed the market for a long time. Operating these routes allowed the Company to cover its bank loans for the Airport reconstruction and aircrafts leasing".
"We believe that the court ruling on this suite will move Ukraine's aviation authorities to protect the competition on the Ukrainian international transportation market, thus allowing us to protect our investments into airport facilities and development of new destinations" - says Sergey Tkachenko. Also Dniproavia Deputy Director hopes that "it will become the first case of real enforcement of Open Sky Agreement and parity principles by Ukrainian civil aviation authorities".
About Dniproavia
Dniproavia is 100% state-owned aviation carrier that operates domestic and international flights from its home Dnipropetrovsk airport - one of Ukraine's major international air-hubs. The Company serves passengers and cargo flights from Ukraine's 3rd largest city of Dnipropetrovsk and nearby regions of Eastern Ukraine - country's major industrial area.
© 2006 Business Wire
