Alfa Group might participate in managing Sheremetyevo airport

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov has commissioned the Economy, Property Relations and Transportation Ministries to work out proposals on the possible participation of the Alfa Group in managing the Sheremetyevo airport, Tatiana Razbash, the press secretary of the head of the government, told journalists today. She specified that corresponding proposals could be submitted to the government this week.

This initiative has been due to the necessity to increase the efficiency of managing the airport and to solve the question of constructing the Sheremetyevo-3 terminal, a source in the Russian government told RBC. A source noted that it would not be the privatization of the airport.

A joint meeting of the Boards of Directors of Aeroflot and the International Airport Sheremetyevo concerning the question of constructing the Sheremetyevo-3 terminal is to take place by June 2003. As Deputy Transportation Minister Karl Ruppel earlier declared, at the beginning of April 2003 the Board of Directors of Sheremetyevo adopted a decision on creating a joint task force with Aeroflot on this issue. A project of constructing the Sheremetyevo-3 terminal was worked out at the end of the 1990s. Its preliminary cost is $300m-350m. The implementation of the project was delayed because Aeroflot and Sheremetyevo could not agree on how to manage the new facility.