The Sheremetyevo Flight Crew Union sent an appeal to Supreme Court Chairman Igor Krasnov in connection with complaints from pilots of AirBridgeCargo and Volga-Dnepr airlines (part of the same group). As Baza writes, the reason was contradictory practice in cases involving the calculation of flight service time, which, in the union's view, requires a unified approach.
According to the union, the air carriers applied reduction coefficients to the actual number of flight hours in cases where the flight was operated with an enlarged crew. Already understated data was then transmitted to the personalized record-keeping system. The union emphasizes that federal regulations do not provide for reducing actual flight time.
A court in Moscow sided with the AirBridgeCargo pilots, while in Ulyanovsk the employees of Volga-Dnepr were denied their claims, and that decision was upheld by the appellate and cassation instances. The head of the Supreme Court ordered the situation to be examined.
Until February 2022, the Volga-Dnepr group accounted for about half of all cargo air transportation from Russia. After being placed on the sanctions list, the company's business model changed. In the summer of 2025, the group's founder, Alexey Isaykin, allowed for the possibility of transferring the company to the state. In November, Rosaviatsiya suspended AirBridgeCargo's air operator certificate at the request of the carrier itself.
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