‘A short while ago, Sunrise tour travel agency’s fifty-six customers who didn’t have any direct agreement with Ural Airlines were unable to pass the border control at Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg and thus missed their chartered flight SVR 3603 due to lack of papers, visas, and passports,’ the carrier’s press officer said to UrBC.

Based on its agreement with PGS Charter, Ural Airlines is to operate a chartered flight from Yekaterinburg, Russia, to Goa, India, and back from December 9, 2007 to April 2, 2008. Apart from flights operated from Moscow, this is the only flight to Goa available in Russia.

‘Three hours before the flight, Sunrise tour informed the airline that their customers had no papers needed for them to leave the country, so the carrier was asked to delay the flight by four hours, during which time fifty-six tourists had to be provided with all the necessary documents. The airline did its best to find a solution to this problem. Even though Ural Airlines had no direct agreement with Sunrise tour, and the flight was actually to be operated at some other customer’s order, a request for delay was sent to the airport in Goa (incidentally, this airport is used by India’s both civil and military aircraft). The request was rejected due to the fact that the officially published regulations for alternating servicing of civil and military aircraft had already been introduced, while the four-hour delay of SVR 3603 flight would fall into the military airplanes’ time slot. The only way out would be to put the flight off by over eight hours, which would save the Sunrise tour’s 56 customers’ day but would also condemn the other 260 innocent travelers (with all the papers on their hands) to waiting at the airport for hours on end. To meet the airline’s primary contractual obligations, Yekaterinburg-Goa-Yekaterinburg flight was operated within the scheduled time and with no delay,’ the airline’s press officer noted.

‘Besides, Ural Airlines suggested that Sunrise tour should send its customers to Moscow, where both chartered and scheduled flights to India are offered by a number of domestic and international carriers. By now, the decision to fly 56 passengers from Yekaterinburg to Goa through Moscow and Bombay has already been taken. The customers, however, will have to hang around Moscow and Bombay airports for over eight hours,’ the press officer added.