MOSCOW, April 17 - RAPSI. The Moscow Commercial Court has delayed until May 24 its hearing of the Aeroflot airline's claim for $5 million in damages from the VTB-24 bank for an online tickets sales failure.

Aeroflot seeks to recover losses resulting from July 16, 2010 hacker attack on its online ticket sales system. The problem was fixed only a week later.

Earlier, the airline provided the court with a list of clients who were unable to book air tickets during the system's malfunction. The list shows more than 9,000 reservation failures.

The bank filed a counterclaim seeking 23.7 million rubles ($796,000) in expenses for American Express card authorizations and contract execution costs.

VTB 24 told the court that hackers attacked the Assist and MultiCarta servers selling e-tickets for VTB 24. The court involved both companies as third parties in the case.
Assist also facilitates Aeroflot's online operations and sells its e-tickets together with VTB 24.

Chronopay General Director Pavel Vrublevsky, the hacker attack mastermind who has been charged with the crime, voluntarily filed to be included in the proceedings.

Based in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, Aeroflot is a member of the SkyTeam Alliance, which flies to 898 destinations in 169 countries. Its fleet is one of the youngest in Europe. In 2010, Aeroflot transported more than 11 million passengers. The Federal State Agency for Property Management is Aeroflot's main shareholder, with a 51.17 percent interest.

VTB 24 is Russia's second largest retail bank. Its profits in 2011 were 26.6 billion rubles ($893.7 million).