There is chaos and “rip-off” at the Simferopol airport, – media

Sevastopol, November 02 (PolitNavigator, Alexander Kononov) - Bad weather in Crimea turned into a real curse for passengers of the Simferopol airport, while its employees, apparently, managed to “warm up” quite well from it.

The editor-in-chief of the Sevastopolskaya Pravda newspaper, Sergei Shchetinin, spoke about what happened at the airport on October 25 on the pages of the publication.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

Subscribe to the news "PolitNavigator - Crimea" in Facebook, Classmates or In contact with

According to him, the sharp deterioration in weather conditions also affected the deterioration of service at the airport, to say the least. While changing the regime in bad weather conditions for the landing and departure of aircraft is, in principle, a common practice, a change in attitude towards one’s clients does not seem to be due to a direct relationship. However, the journalist notes, not in the case of Simferopol airport.

“The fact is that airport employees gave clients a really cold reception,” writes Sergei Shchetinin.

“They had to stay in the poorly heated departure hall for about a day. Flight passengers first checked in their luggage and then were required to pick it up. It was very cold, it was difficult even to sleep at night. No conditions for recreation were created. Rare announcements of food and refreshments were met with convulsive applause from passengers who could no longer contain their indignation. No hot meals were provided. Prices at the airport are inflated and you can’t buy much. We had to warm up through sports exercises,” says Shchetinin.

Moreover, Crimeans awaiting the arrival of relatives and guests, says the author of the article in the newspaper, went through even more severe trials, because there is simply no special room for meeting passengers. There are only 20 places to sit, the same cold as outside, only without the icy wind, the tea and coffee machine does not work,” the author states.

The situation is complemented, he said, by inaccurate information about arrival on the board or by phone at the help desk.

“Aeroflot flight SU 1848 from Moscow was expected to arrive on Saturday, October 25 at 17:40. Due to weather conditions in Simferopol, the flight was delayed for 2 hours, and then again. After the plane took off, a line appeared on the board: flying, expected time - 23:10. No further information was available about his whereabouts. Those greeting us, standing in the cold, waited for the plane for another 15 hours. Some panicked. After all, the plane disappeared somewhere.”

The next day, flight SU 1848 was again not among the planes that landed in Simferopol. According to rumors from someone meeting us, who later managed to find information only on the Internet, the plane remained in Moscow.

“Airport employees were ordered to meet arrivals on the street, where passengers with suitcases exited. I had to stand in the hurricane many times, because... It was not reliably reported who was flying on which flight. As a result, the passengers of SU 1848 arrived on October 26 after 13:00 on another flight. They said that they were over Simferopol on October 25, the pilot tried several times to land the plane, but as a result decided to return to Moscow. There the passengers were accommodated in a hotel and fed.”

At this time, Sergei Shchetinin emphasizes, in Simferopol the welcoming relatives were in the cold without information about the location of the plane before its arrival. “People were frozen to the bone,” he says.

And finally, according to him, the airport services prepared the main gift for their guests.

“Due to long waits for flights and sitting in the parking lot, car owners had to fork out money. Parking a car for 20 hours cost the freezing people at the “cozy” airport 1000 rubles (50 rubles for 1 hour). Prices for a minibus are twice as high. There is no other parking there. Traffic police officers are closely monitoring to ensure that no one gets the “free cheese” and mercilessly teach a lesson to “violators” who barely stop in a paid parking lot.”

According to the author, the daily earnings of an employee at Simferopol Airport directly depend on weather conditions. The worse it is for his clients, the better it is undoubtedly for him.