Indonesia refuses to refuel Russian planes - media
Companies and banks in the country fear Western sanctions, so the issue of resuming direct flights is up in the air
Russian airlines are unable to reach an agreement with Indonesian airports on refuelling and aircraft maintenance, Russian Ambassador to Indonesia Sergey Tolchenov said, as cited by moscowtimes.eu.
According to him, due to the denial of airport services, it is not possible to establish the repeatedly announced direct flights to Bali, the main destination of Russian tourism in Asia, which was visited by more than 150,000 Russians last year.
"The local side has not yet been able to create the conditions necessary to receive and service aircraft. We are talking about both refuelling and the ability to make payments – for fuel and other airport services, including ticket sales," Tolchenov complains.
According to him, Indonesian companies and banks "still fear Western sanctions". As a result, the issue of resuming direct flights is up in the air, despite the readiness of Russian airlines to operate and repeated promises from the Indonesian authorities.
"On the one hand, our Indonesian partners are indeed talking about their interest in resuming direct flights. On the other hand, there are no practical steps to create the conditions for flights between Russia and Indonesia to resume," the ambassador complained.
Negotiations on direct flights from Russia to Bali have been going on for more than two years, the newspaper writes. State-owned airlines Aeroflot and Rossiya announced the start of ticket sales in 2023. However, non-stop flights have not appeared, and Russians have to fly to Indonesia with transfers in Doha or Dubai.
Background. As a reminder, China has taken back the equipment it provided for the Russian Arctic LNG 2 project due to sanctions. A few days before arriving in the Murmansk region, the Chinese vessel turned around and headed back.
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