BLACKLIST.AERO CELEBRATES FIRST TWO YEARS: WHAT WE HAVE ACHIEVED
This project was carried like a child - exactly 9 months. When I was already planning to start it, fears arose: “What if war breaks out?” At the end of January - beginning of February, the presence of more than 200 thousand Russian troopers near the borders of Ukraine had indicated that the war was absolutely real. Although only those who planned this war could believe that a big war in Europe is even possible in the 21st century. The subsequent atrocities of Russian soldiers in Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol and hundreds of other large and small cities in Ukraine showed that no achievements of mankind, no technological progress and no check and balance systems will save if mentally sick tyrants are in power.
However, then, three weeks before the war, I understood one thing - just as a child cannot wait in the mother’s womb for the “best moment” to be born, so BLACKLIST.AERO could not be implemented “someday later”.
I told myself: “Do what you must do, and come what may”. As subsequent events showed, this was the only correct decision. If I had not publicly announced the start of the BLACKLIST.AERO Registry, purposely burning the bridges of retreat for myself, then later the war would have negated everything that had been done before. Since then, these words have been not just a motto for the entire BLACKLIST.AERO team, but a real driver that makes us move forward every day, no matter what. Yes, auto-training, recommend it.
None of us, Ukrainians, will ever forget the first days of the war. My memories are of a family in a bomb shelter and the smell of Molotov cocktails that the guys were preparing around the corner. And these cocktails had to be stored in premises where we (there were about 20 men of us) collected all our civilian weapons and prepared for any development of events.
The BLACKLSIT.AERO Registry was also administered from there in the first three weeks of the war. In between the news: “The bastards have entered Kyiv,” “There is a battle a kilometer from our street, they are seizing a military unit. Let's get ready to fight!”, and air raids, I still managed to add new cases to the Register, communicate with defaulters and claimants, and sometimes even write an article.
How long could you live like this? As much as was needed. But I knew for sure that hundreds of thousands of other Ukrainians, who found themselves under occupation in the very first days of the war, were much worse off at that time. We did not yet know about the thousands of victims of genocide of civilians in Bucha, Irpin, Motyzhin and dozens of other localities. It has not yet come to the point of deliberate bombing of civilians who sheltered in the building of the drama theater in Mariupol and the Mariupol maternity hospital (as Russian propagandists said then - “the headquarters of the Azov battalion”). It was just the beginning...
Well, the war has been going on for almost two years now, and there is no end in sight. But Ukraine survived, drove out the invaders from a fairly large part of its territory and today has destroyed more than 30% of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, without even having its own fleet!
BLACKLIST.AERO has also survived. We also had to create our own “surface drones”, which “ships” of defaulters and fraudsters are so afraid of. And based on the results of the past two years, we have something to brag about. Let's start with some dry numbers for fans of statistics:
SUBMITTED CASES – 200+
TOTAL CLAIM AMOUNT – USD 12M+
RESOLVED CASES – 42
TOTAL REFUNDED AMOUNT – USD 1.3M+
However, much more important than all these numbers are the real changes that we managed to achieve in the aviation market:
1. Aviation market participants are no longer afraid to talk about the problem of debts that certain companies have to them. Having debtors is no longer perceived as having a bad disease. Everyone now understands that this “disease” is less like gonorrhea and more like the Covid-19 pandemic. And to fight it, it is not enough to isolate from the market a few “zero patients” who are promiscuous. Instead, systemic measures are needed to prevent the disease and create the herd immunity to the disease.
2. The main principles declared by BLACKLIST.AERO, such as: a) zero tolerance towards fraudsters and systemic defaulters; b) full responsibility of the owners of defaulting companies (as in the banking sector) instead of limited liability, and c) professional solidarity of participants in the aviation market in the fight against scammers and defaulters, are increasingly being established in aviation.
3. Thanks to the trust in the information we convey to our subscribers and readers, the influence of the BLACKLIST.AERO registry is constantly increasing. We learn about many cases where the mere mention of BLACKLIST.AERO forces defaulters to immediately pay debts only after the fact! We know of several dozen similar cases.
4. The core of support for our initiatives is growing at a steady pace. Over the past two years, BLACKLIST.AERO has established itself as a sustainable business practice in the aviation market.
What's next?
Two years ago, the whole world entered a completely new era. Many people began to realize it only lately. The new era is distinguished by the destruction of old ideas about life, about what is possible and what is impossible in our reality. Old authorities are also being destroyed. What was previously called a constant is often an anachronism in the current era.
Let me give you the United Nations as an example. Is anyone interested what the s...t these “diplomats” are talking about now??? Does this even affect anything???
The next task of BLACKLIST.AERO is to contribute to the establishment of transparent work rules in the aviation market. To do this, we intend to involve in the process those institutions that, by the nature of their activities, should act as unique regulators in the market. However, in practice, they often choose to remain indifferent, hypocritically sending victims of scams to aunties and uncles in wigs and robes. Knowing full well that even if after a couple of years, the victim of a scam receives a court decision in his favor, it’s not going to get him any closer to restoring justice.
Why is it happening? If we are talking about Civil Aviation Authorities, then, with all the powers they had, “they were not given this specific task, they did not create staff units that would deal with these issues.”
If we talk about organizations and companies, they often do not want to “lose clients” who pay the membership fee and subscriptions. What this leads to can be seen on the example of such a “mastodon” as Avinode.
The unwillingness to monitor the fraudulent activity of some of its clients (despite numerous statements on the edge of prayer from many users) has led to the fact that users are actively switching to new platforms for ordering/selling charters. Currently, users utilize several platforms simultaneously. But the presence of problems that Avinode deliberately does not want to solve in order to maximize profits will sooner or later play a bad joke to them. Having prioritized increasing profits at all costs, the old authorities cease to be such and are gradually becoming a thing of the past.
But not all. And the transparent and public identification of those already existing institutions that in the future can become real drivers in the aviation market, introducing transparent business practices and maintaining order in it, is the one of our tasks for the next two years.
But as the main task for BLACKLIST.AERO we see the creation of sustainable mechanisms in the aviation market, when the need for such a Register will no longer be necessary. Yes-yes, exactly! Believe me, we are not afraid of “losing business.” Because it was never a “business” for us. And we know for sure that the BLACKLIST.AERO team will always find a place for itself in the new security architecture of the aviation market. I believe that we will be able to achieve our main goal in 5 - 7 years.
Well, until the times I described have arrived, we still have a lot of work to do. Wish us good luck, patience and sense of humor while reading the next threats and libels from those on our list;)
Artem Degtiarov, Chief editor at BLACKLIST.AERO
I have repeatedly said about this simple truth to the co-owner of MERKUR HOLDING, Halis Din. During the time that has passed since he signed the Three Cases Declaration in December 2022, cases against MERKUR and its subsidiary company JET ASSIST have been repeatedly created in the BLACKLIST.AERO Registry.
Last week, already well-known Congressman Danilo (Dan) Fernandez was forced to comment during 10 minutes, right at a meeting of the committee that he heads in the Philippine Congress, on the publications of BLACKLIST.AERO.
In November 2023, we wrote about AERO BLEU AIRWAYS and its actual owner, Philippine Congressman Dan (Danilo) Fernandez. Let me remind you - this company has repeatedly distinguished itself by wet leasing cargo aircraft for charter programs. However, each time, the lack of professionalism of management in planning flights and basic ignorance of the laws operating in the cargo transportation market led to the fact that programs were disrupted, aircraft were idle, and AERO BLEU AIRWAYS simply refused to pay both leasing payments and the bills for previously provided handling and refueling services.
Occasionally, representatives of defaulting companies ask us a question like: “How can you help a company like...” and then the name of the company that filed a case against them. “Ask others, your claimants have a very bad reputation! But we have a good reputation and don’t want the case in BLACKLIST.AERO to cast a shadow over it!”
