Almost 90% of passenger flights in Russia are carried out by Western-made aircraft. However, sanctions do not allow it to buy new aircraft and spare parts for the old ones. Can they replace them and with what?
Over the next five years, Russian airlines will part with at least 200 Western passenger planes - about a third of the Airbus and Boeing fleet, which currently numbers about 700 aircraft. They will have to be taken out of service, as Western sanctions against Russia make complex repairs impossible. This was recently stated by Sergey Chemezov, head of the state corporation “Rostec“.
The enterprises that are part of “Rostec“ will be able to replace these aircraft with new Russian MC-21 and SJ-100, Chemezov assures. But their ability to cope with these tasks raises doubts. So far, airlines have not received a single one of these machines. Moreover, since the beginning of Russia's war against Ukraine “Rostec“ has not been able to start production of even modernized Tu-214s. What awaits Russian civil aviation if Airbus and Boeing cannot be replaced?
What is happening to air transport in Russia
Air passenger transport in Russia in 2024 increased by 5.9% compared to 2023 and reached 111.7 million people, according to Rosaviatsia. For comparison - in 2021, that is, in the year before the start of the war against Ukraine, Russian airlines transported a total of 111 million people. At that time, however, the effect of the Covid pandemic was still felt and Russians did not travel very much. In the pre-pandemic year of 2019, a total of 128.1 million people flew with Russian airlines. In this sense, passenger traffic has decreased, but not significantly, which is mainly due to international flights limited by sanctions.
“The lack of new Russian aircraft is already having a negative impact on air transport“, says Oleg Panteleev, general director of the “Aviaport“ agency. According to the head of “Rosaviatsiya“ Dmitry Yadrov, this has not yet affected flight safety in Russia. “Flight safety indicators and the growth of air traffic show that the aviation industry is functioning stably“, he claims.
However, this is not confirmed by the accident data in publicly available sources of information: they clearly indicate an increase in the number of accidents. “Novaya Gazeta Evropa“ reports, for example, more than 200 accidents in 2024 – more than in 2023, and significantly more than 5 years ago, when with a higher passenger flow, incidents were half as frequent – about 100 in total.
How airlines survive under sanctions
Western sanctions do not allow Russia to buy new aircraft and maintain the old ones. Now 90% of flights in Russia continue to be carried out by Western-made aircraft. At the same time, they are operated more intensively. According to experts interviewed by “Nova Gazeta Evropa“, the aircraft fleet of Russian airlines has decreased by about 25% since the beginning of the war. Without full access to the global spare parts market, airlines are forced to gradually dismantle some of their aircraft in order to keep the rest in working order. This practice is called “cannibalization” and has since been legalized by the Russian government.
So far, Russia has only managed to organize the production of the simplest equipment. For example, a joint venture between "Aeroflot" and "Rosatom", according to the newspaper "Izvestia", produces air conditioners, power supply and lighting systems, as well as emergency and rescue, oxygen and fire-fighting equipment. But only in rare cases do Russian airlines manage to acquire new aircraft. For example, Reuters recently reported that the Belarusian Belavia is buying three Airbus aircraft for a Russian airline from the Gambian Magic Air. If the scheme works, it could be used to circumvent sanctions.
Russia is also negotiating with Kazakhstan to allow its airlines to operate Russian domestic flights. However, it is not known whether these negotiations will continue after the crash of the Azerbaijani Airlines plane traveling from Baku to Grozny, which crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau. Since the main version of the crash is that the plane was shot down by a Russian missile, air carriers in Kazakhstan have canceled flights to Russia for security reasons.
When will there be new Russian planes?
The goal of producing 200 new Russian aircraft by 2030, outlined by the head of "Rostec" Sergey Chemezov, does not seem too ambitious compared to the plans three years ago. In the spring of 2022, the Ministry of Transport prepared a strategy for the development of the aircraft industry, which envisaged the production of up to 1,000 aircraft by 2030.
However, after an audit commissioned by the government, the authorities abandoned this strategy. The consultants who conducted it found, in particular, that airlines were interested in only one model - the MC-21, considered a serious competitor to the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320. Apparently, Russian airlines are not interested in the other two aircraft models - the SJ-100 and the Tu-214.
"We are getting what is possible"
The aircraft company "Yakovlev" has just recently received approval from "Rosaviatsiya" for serial production of the MC-21 aircraft. But it can begin no earlier than next year - after the aircraft is certified. The so-called certification flights should begin in the middle of this year.
"If the MC-21 is designed sensibly, it will not be a bad machine. "Our designers have always offered aircraft with good design, characteristics and flight qualities," says aviation expert Vadim Lukashevich, adding: "If the MC-21 had a foreign composite wing and American avionics and engines, it could compete with the Airbus A320 or Boeing 737. But with the domestic wing, the machine would be several tons heavier. There are also problems with the engine. But we get what is possible." Industry sources told Kommersant that one of the obstacles is military aviation: civilian aircraft cannot currently be produced, since the necessary components go to enterprises of the military-industrial complex. And even if the war ends quickly, the situation will not change significantly. "Even if it ends tonight, our industry will remain on military rails for several more years. "The transition to military production was a difficult process, but the return to civilian production is just as difficult," says Lukashevich.