Russian flag-carrier Aeroflot has sacked its deputy chief, Vladimir Smirnov, in the wake of serious disruption to its operations this week.
Aeroflot suffered heavy delays during winter storms at its Moscow Sheremetyevo base.
The carrier says Smirnov was "relieved of his duties" following "errors which led to disruption" during 26-29 December.
It says that about 65% of its flights over the period were delayed, and some 3,000 of its passengers were flown on other airlines. All passengers of affected flights will be compensated, it adds.
Moscow's other main airport, Domodedovo, also struggled to cope for several days after a catastrophic power failure on 26 December.
The airport's operator, East Line Group, says that director Vyacheslav Nekrasov has been "transferred" to a deputy post, naming Igor Borisov as the airport's new director.
But it insists that this decision was made on 25 December, the day before the power failures.
East Line states that two power sources feed the airport but that, early on 26 December, one of these suffered a partial failure of its 110kV feeder lines which knocked out the airport's information systems.
The second source completely failed about three hours later at 06:25 and, three hours after that, the first source also failed entirely. The airport was forced to resort to diesel generators, but could only maintain a limited operation.
Russia's transport ministry has been holding meetings with the energy ministry, East Line, and the heads of carriers including Transaero, S7 Airlines, UTAir and Ural Airlines over the situation at Domodedovo, and plans a similar meeting at Sheremetyevo.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
