UrBC, Moscow, November 11, 2011. The tour operator Pegas Touristik is now offering fewer flights to Israel and the Dominican Republic as well as fewer seats on Kenya-bound flights, TourBusiness reports. The news of a reduction in the number of winter-time flights to Israel, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, and Thailand was announced by the Association of Russian Tour Operators this week. ‘The number of flights will go down noticeably only when two countries are concerned, that is, Israel and the Dominican Republic. As for Egypt and Thailand, the operator only canceled one flight out of several

UrBC, Yekaterinburg, November 11, 2011. Burger King is about to open its outlet in Yekaterinburg. The American fast food chain’s first restaurant will be launched downtown in December 2011, Molly.ru reports. Adwill acted as the exclusive broker between Shokoladnitza coffee house chain and Russ Burger, the franchise owner. Under the franchise agreement, Russ Burger was provided a 486 sq m location for the new restaurant in Malyshev St. The rent agreement is valid for the period of seven years.

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, November 14, 2011. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) keeps working on the production of new cold-rolled sheet products using the first section of its cold-roll Mill 2000. According to the company’s PR Department, the recent series of tests has shown that Mill 2000 can roll both the ordinary kinds of steel and the kinds with the lower reeling temperatures. The rolling of duplex steels was successful as well, just as that of highly durable DP600 and DP1200 steels (the latter was dealt with for the first time in Russia). In fact, only a few

Oblastnaya Gazeta and Interfax keep working on their financial project that can benefit the existing and potential customers of Sverdlovsk Region-based banks: Interfax-CEA (Center for Economic Analysis) came up with a ranking of regional banks based on their activity in nine months of 2011. According to these data, the performance indicators of most lending institutions went up in January-September 2011, whereas the assets of Yekaterinburg Municipal Bank and Tagilbank shrank. Uralfinance’s own funds decreased as well, and so did the volume of its private individuals’ savings. ‘In addition to

Tyumen Region Arbitration Court supported the ruling of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service regarding the price collusion between UTair and Yamal Airlines. The two companies are declared to reach a secret agreement on the price of tickets for Tyumen-Sochi-Tyumen flight, RIA Novosti reports. ‘The FAS looked into the fare documentation and came to the conclusion that UTair Aviation Company and Yamal Aviation Company set approximately equal prices for economy class tickets for Tyumen-Sochi-Tyumen flights. The price difference only came to 90 RUR,’ the FAS press service reports.

The filling station of Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport is once again launching a jet fuel price increase. Starting November 14, the price of the fuel will come to 31,150 RUR per ton, which is nearly 7% more expensive than the previous quotation. This is actually not the first time the airport has raised jet fuel prices this year. For one, the price went up by 4% on May 24, by 6% on August 9, by 4.4% on September 11, and by 2.6% on October 19, 2011. This means that the price of jet fuel will increase by 24% over the course of a year.

The cargo customs point at Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg is about to start operating twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. ‘Given the growing pace of economic development in Russia on the whole and in Ural Federal District and Sverdlovsk Region in particular, and given especially the foreign investors’ interest in the region and Yekaterinburg’s strategic location on the border of Europe and Asia, and given finally the fact that Koltsovo Airport is virtually the only international airport in Ural Federal District, we can predict that the

It is quite clear after the publication of Carlsberg’s quarterly report for the third quarter of 2011 why the concern decided to appoint a new head for its Russian asset Baltika Beer Company. In the said quarter, Carlsberg’s in-kind sales dropped by 3%, its revenues decreased by 1.5%, and its operational profits declined by 21%. The brewery blames the Russian market for this, as the sales plunged by 15% there and Baltika’s share of the market shrank by 2.5% and came to 36.8%, RBC daily reports.

UTair Aviation Company’s passenger airplane SGJ 200 had to perform an emergency landing at the airport of Urai, Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region, as its flaps failed to open, an officer from the district division of the Emergency Ministry told RIA Novosti. ‘It was announced that the airplane flying from Moscow to Urai did not manage to get the flaps open. There were four crew members and twenty-seven passengers on board,’ the officer explained. He said the Emergency Ministry staff and the town’s emergency service headed off for the airport at once. ‘The plane landed okay; no one was injured

The PR agency Weber Shandwick announced that it was requested to promote Yekaterinburg as the host city for EXPO 2020 exhibition. This information is available from the company’s website. In fact, Yekaterinburg is currently among the five shortlist candidates for hosting the World Universal Exhibition in 2020. ‘We are proud to be engaged in supporting Russia and Yekaterinburg in their efforts to host EXPO 2020. We intend to create the strongest international team available and to use the experience from our best global PR campaigns to bring EXPO 2020 to Russia and to the Urals,’ says the

An ad hoc committee was set up to look into the causes and circumstances of a worker’s death at UC RUSAL Ural smelter. The worker was killed during switching operations with the railway carriages; according to the enterprise’s management, he slipped from the buffer bar onto the approaching lines and was deadly injured. ‘It has preliminarily been reported that the accident was caused by a violation of safety regulations, as the worker was located in the part of the carriage that is not meant for performing switching operations,’ UC RUSAL representative Roman Lukichev told UrBC. The company

Perm division of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service fined ROSNO Insurance Company for colluding with Sberbank in the field of personal insurance for consumer loan applicants. The fine comes to 1.44m RUR, and the charges are based on Article 14.32 of the Russian Federation Administrative Offense Code. According to RBC daily, Sberbank made its loan applicants sign a life and health insurance agreement with ROSNO; no other insurers were available. In fact, Perm division of the FAS had already fined Sberbank for the same offense earlier; the fine came to 11m RUR then. ‘The insurance company

Vysokogorsky Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (VGOK) dumped 11.654m cubic meters of contaminated waste water in the system last year, which accounted for 8.1% of all the waste water dumped in the town of Nizhniy Tagil. These data are available from the public report on the state of and the protection of Sverdlovsk Region environment in 2010. The report is based on the data provided by the state statistical service and environmental surveillance bodies as well as on the information from the state-run environmental protection authorities and leading conservationist and environmentalist

Uralvagonzavod dumped 12.72m cubic meters of contaminated waste water in the system last year, which accounted for 8.8% of all the waste water dumped in the town of Nizhniy Tagil. These data are available from the public report on the state of and the protection of Sverdlovsk Region environment in 2010. The report is based on the data provided by the state statistical service and environmental surveillance bodies as well as on the information from the state-run environmental protection authorities and leading conservationist and environmentalist organizations.

‘This Rezh-based nickel plant is a troubled enterprise, and its problems have a long history rooted in the fact that the production cost of nickel is actually higher than its market price. This plant is the surrounding town’s only employer, which is very important. The municipal authorities should pay special attention to the fact that there is a stoppage and that nearly 1,000 people need to find new jobs. The two-thirds of their wages that they get is not a bad thing at all, but something must be done right now, because, if the plant does not resume operating in two or three months, people

Ural Airlines was given the 97th position in the rating of the Urals and Siberia’s top 400 companies compiled by the Expert-Ural magazine. The rating is updated on a yearly basis and looks at the companies’ financial performance indicators as well as at its development dynamics, the airline’s press service explains. Over the course of one year, Ural Airlines was promoted by three points, from the 100th position in 2009 to the 97th position a year later.

Rosaviation forbade VIM Avia to operate any flights to Europe, RBC daily reports. On November 3, the airline received a wire from Rosaviation telling them that some limitations were imposed on its aircraft operator license regarding flights to the EU using Boeing 757-200 aircraft. ‘However, the official wording of the order still had not been conveyed to us by yesterday,’ the air carrier’s official representative told RBC daily.

Nizhniy Tagil Iron & Steel Works (NTMK) dumped 29,215m cubic meters of contaminated waste water in the system last year, which accounted for 20.2% of all the waste water dumped in the town of Nizhniy Tagil. These data are available from the public report on the state of and the protection of Sverdlovsk Region environment in 2010. The report is based on the data provided by the state statistical service and environmental surveillance bodies as well as on the information from the state-run environmental protection authorities and leading conservationist and environmentalist organizations.

UrBC, Moscow, November 8, 2011. Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) stopped prosecuting Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) on the suspicion that the enterprise violated Article 10 (part 1, paragraph 3) of the Federal Competition Protection Act, as no violation has apparently been committed, the FAS’s press service reports. The agency took action when the Russian pipe manufacturers complained about MMK infringing disadvantageous agreement terms upon them. According to a number of manufacturers, MMK increased the price of massive plates at its own discretion in January 2011. The

Saint Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport emergency crew and firefighters watched with apprehension as a passenger Boeing from Surgut was trying to land, the airport’s press service informed Interfax. ‘The crew of Surgut-Saint Petersburg flight reported they had problems landing, which is why the firefighters and the emergency crew were sent down the landing strip,’ the press officer said. He explained this was a standard procedure for cases when pilots operating a plane feel something is not right while landing. UTair airplane landed smoothly, no one was hurt, the press officer added.