On 22 December at a meeting of the Russian Government considered and approved the allocation of additional funding for temporarily closed airports in southern Russia. The corresponding order was published on the website of the Cabinet of Ministers.
From the reserve fund of the Government to the airports of the central and southern regions for partial compensation of their costs due to the extension of flight restrictions will be additionally allocated about 3.3 billion rubles. These are airports in Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar, Anapa, Gelendzhik, Elista, Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Voronezh and Simferopol, whose work has been temporarily suspended for the safety of civil aviation flights.
The allocated funds will be used to partially offset the cost of ordinary activities and interest payments on loan or credit agreements for August to November 2023. “In 2023 for these purposes from the reserve fund of the Government has already been allocated more than 5 billion rubles, in 2022 – about 7 billion rubles”, – stated in the explanatory note to the order.
On 15 December 2023, Krasnodar’s Pashkovsky Airport received a test flight, the first after the temporary closure of the airport in February 2022, of Azimut Airlines on a Superjet 100 aircraft from Mineralnye Vody. The test flight without passengers was planned by the Rosaviatsia working group on ensuring the safety of regular civil aircraft flights to Pashkovsky Airport. No decision has yet been made on the resumption of the airport’s operations.