The Prosecutor General’s Office took control of the situation with the complaint of agents on the TKP
As Kommersant found out, the Prosecutor General’s Office took control of the situation with the complaint of agents against the TKP – the operator of mutual settlements in air transport – for paying for tickets after the cancellation of the so -called “Dachshund of ZZ”. The agency recalls the other day about the ban on this payment by the size of 185 rubles, but the TKP has already introduced a more expensive new fee for information and technological service. With disagreements to increase the contracts. Agents offer to transfer payment of services to carriers.
The Prosecutor General’s Office took control of the situation with the cost of services for the registration of tickets by the company TKP, the largest operator of the Russian system of mutual settlements in air transport – for agents. This follows from the answer (“Kommersant”) of the supervisory authority to the Association of Air Transport Agency (AUAT), sent this week.
Earlier, the AUAT complained to the Prosecutor General’s Office at the TKP due to the revision of contracts with agents from November 1, 2024. As explained “Kommersant” on the AUBT, the TKP changed the ZZ dachshund in 185 rubles. After the courts with prosecutors to pay for services for « information and technical services » (results). As a result, instead of 185 rubles. For printing a ticket on the form, agents pay 222 rubles. Given the VAT for the segment in one direction. According to Kommersant, the President of the AUBT Sergey Demidenko, as a result, the situation for agents became worse, and tickets for passengers are more expensive. In the TKP “Kommersant” did not answer.
Disputes around the ZZ dachshund in the air traffic rise since 2019, when the TKP tried to legitimize this fee through amendments to the federal aviation rules (See “Kommersant” dated August 16, 2019). In 2021, the Moscow Interregional Transport Prosecutor’s Office tried to prove the illegality of the collection, but the Presnensky district court of Moscow sided with the TKP.
The revision of the contracts occurred after in the summer of 2024 the court of Novosibirsk decided to return 185 rubles to the passenger. At the suit of the West Siberian Transport Prosecutor’s Office. The position of the prosecutor was to recognize the dachshund illegal, since, according to FAP-82, the carrier is responsible for the costs of the air ticket.
On March 31, the Prosecutor General’s Office recalled that in the claims of the Siberian supervisory authority, the company’s actions were recognized as illegal and the collection of 185 rubles. Crossed.
A week earlier, the FAS issued a TKP warning for the fact that after the court of the ZZ dachshund, the company introduced a new fee under standard agreements with agents, « without providing additional services. » The FAS demanded to stop the “imposition of the service” and threatened with the initiation of antitrust. The letter of the Prosecutor General says that the TKP has 30 days to eliminate violations. The department and the FAS did not answer at the time of publication of Kommersant.
The FAS also noted that when refusing to sign new terms of the contract, the agency loses access to the reservation services: “Thus, passengers who cannot purchase tickets directly from airlines, including those living in remote, low -populated points, are deprived of the possibility of purchasing air tickets.”
According to Kommersant, the TKP terminated the old agreement with the Primorsky Agency of Aviation Companies (PAK), which is considered the largest in the Far East and has 30 branches. In the year, according to Kommersant’s interlocutor, the agency sells about 500 thousand air tickets, of which almost 15% in subsidized tariffs. More than 20% of tickets were issued according to military transportation documents of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They refused to sign a new contract in the PAK, and the TKP turned off the agency from its systems and deprived of accreditation, says Kommersant’s source. In the PAK, which disputes the actions of the TKP in the Arbitration Court of Moscow, refrained from commenting.
How TKP grew
TKP (previously the chamber and cliling chamber) was created in the 1990s airlines as a structure to facilitate mutual settlements. At the end of 2024, according to the reporting, the TKP concluded contracts with 82 airlines, 4 railway carriers and 768 agencies for the sale of air tickets. According to the SPARK, for 2018, the majority share of the TKP belonged to structures that were controlled by the heirs of the ex-Grandskiy Airlines, Tatevos Surinov (died in 2015) and his partner Suleiman Ibragimov. The reporting of the TKP for 2025 among shareholders with a share of more than 20% indicated « Apstim-Invest » and two individuals. According to Kommersant’s interlocutors in the market, the beneficiaries of the TKP remain the family of Mr. Surinov, as well as Suleiman Ibragimov and Mikhail Baskakov.
With TKP, “Sirena-Rodel” is affiliated-the developer of the Leonardo reservation system. This is the main reservation system in the Russian Federation, with which Aeroflot, Ural Airlines and other large carriers operate. Prior to the departure of foreign reservation systems in 2022, about 15–20% of transactions in the air transport of the Russian Federation passed through the TKP.
According to the results of 2024, 33.5 million tickets were issued in the TKP, according to Kommersant.
According to IFRS reports, since 2022, the TKP net profit has increased by half, to 3 billion rubles. The revenue increased by almost 50%, to 5.9 billion. Through the TKP, tickets cannot be arranged only on S7 and Azimut, which cooperate with another reservation system developed by ORS.
After 2022, Sirena-Rodel, according to Kommersant’s sources in the market, was negotiating the entry of Rostec in its capital. The structure of « Rostec » « RT design technologies » became a Leonardo development partner, and in press releases the state corporation called the Leonardo system Rostec. The deal did not take place.
Some of Kommersant’s interlocutors associate the increased attention of the TKP with the criminal case of two top managers of the “Siren-Rotel” Igor Roitman and Alexander Kalchuk on charges of unlawful influence on critical information infrastructure (See “Kommersant” dated April 5, 2024). Other Kommersant sources believe that the authorities are only achieving a reduction in prices for TKP tariffs, supporting the FAS line for “transportation prices”.
Search for a compromise
The market participants surveyed by “Kommersant”, including those who consider the cost of the services of a TCP high, recognize the right of the operator to receive remuneration for their services and determine their value. Moreover, most of the agents believe that carriers should pay for the results. Sources of Kommersant in airlines rate that in any case this amount will be included in the price of the ticket along with other training camps. Aeroflot, Ural Airlines, S7, Red Wings and Azur Air “Kommersant” did not answer.
Over the 20 years of work, not a single complaint of customers about the canceled ZZ dachshund was recorded, said Marina Bashina, CEO of the BPO agency.
According to her, agents pay the end for the ability to arrange tickets on the neutral drain of the TKP, since not all regional airlines have straight drains. In addition, it is difficult for agents to conclude direct agreements with all small carriers and work taking into account the difference in time zones: “And this is not necessary for one ticket a year.” In addition, the airline, when concluding direct agreements, requires a security payment from the agents: “Usually this is millions of rubles.” Mrs. Bashina emphasizes that the agents themselves choose whether to work with TKP or not.
The interlocutor of Kommersant in the expert community believes that the problem should be solved “not in the plane of the legitimacy of the payment itself for the results”, but in determining its fair size and addressee. With any outcome, the operator will pay for the services of the operator, who cannot buy a ticket directly, he points out. At the same time, the expert adds, the situation can be improved in a market way if the TKP has a competitor in the form of ORS, which could integrate with other large carriers. But such a scenario, in his opinion, can be complicated by technical difficulties and unwillingness of airlines to bear the expenses for integration into both systems at once. They did not respond to ORS “Kommersant”. Kommersant’s interlocutor close to the ORS noted that it was both inexpensive and not technically technically, but the TKP has deprived LEC accreditation about ten years ago and is unlikely to allow the competitor to “Siren-Ravel”.
