Russia's flagship carrier Aeroflot lost over 700,000 euros on Monday alone over traffic jams created by road repairs en route to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, an airline official said on Thursday.
He added that 1,300 passengers had missed their flights.
"We've refunded our passengers 75 percent of the ticket cost," Aeroflot Deputy CEO Andrei Kalmykov told the State Duma lower house of parliament. "The first day of this disaster was deadly for us."
Repairs began on Monday on the Leningradsky highway, which leads to Moscow's largest international airport. Construction led to severe road congestion in the area, causing pilots as well as travellers to miss their flights. It is currently taking Muscovites 5-6 hours on average to get to Sheremetyevo.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov to work with city authorities to find a way to solve the problem.
Kalmykov said that Aeroflot was not warned about the road works. Sheremetyevo head Mikhail Vasilenko accused the Moscow authorities of deliberately jeopardizing trips by passengers who had chosen his airport over the newly remodeled Vnukovo terminals, set to open on July 3.
Vnukovo belongs to the Moscow government, while Sheremetyevo is owned by federal authorities.
Moscow Region Transportation Minister Pyotr Katsyv said that repairs on the Leningradsky highway would have begun earlier, but Moscow city and regional authorities could not agree on who should foot the bill.
Katsyv added that the beams supporting the bridge at the centre of repairs had been severely worn out. Securing the bridge, he said, was a matter of safety for the Sapsan express train, which travels between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Andrei Tsybin, head of Moscow's public amenities department, said that road construction leading up to the airport should be completed by Oct. 1, 2010.
