Package tours with a flight from Russia to Georgia may appear in the next two weeks, according to tour operators. However, for now, representatives of the tourism industry are more likely to take a wait-and-see attitude, since the schedule of direct flights has yet to be formed, told on Tuesday, May 16, at the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR).
“We can talk about an organized tourist flow only after the schedule normalizes and will be pulled up on GDS (tickets from free sale),” one of the tour operators noted.
A number of other tour operators agreed with this assessment. Industry representatives note that once flights are in the system, it will take a couple of days to put together package tours.
The Georgian Civil Aviation Agency has previously stated that flights will only be carried out by airlines and aircraft that are not under international sanctions. That is, ATOR continued, we are hardly talking about aircraft that differ from the SSJ-100.
The day before, Russian airlines asked Georgia give permission to fly into the country. A decision on each application will be taken separately after studying the status of companies and aircraft. The head of the Ministry of Economy of Georgia said that after the restoration of direct flights with Russia, the country’s tourism sector will will make a big profit – it will be up to $400 million per year.
