Dead in the air. Why Russian civil aviation is beyond salvation

Like everywhere else in the world, two brands bore the brunt of Russia’s air travel in the last couple of decades: the American-made Boeing and the European Airbus. Aeroflot, Russia's largest airline, abandoned Soviet Тu-154M planes long ago, completing the last such flight on December 31, 2009. The carrier had over 100 new Airbus and Boeing liners available on short notice at the time. By the estimates of Vitaly Savelyev, the then CEO of Aeroflot, modern planes enabled the company to hold a 30% share of Russia’s passenger transportation market. Transaero, the nation's second largest airline had 47 planes, of which only three were domestically manufactured Tu-214 liners. S7 Airlines, the second runner-up, operated 32 aircraft, all Boeing or Airbus.

The development of the short-haul liner Sukhoi Superjet 100 supported Russian aircraft engineering in numbers but, due to the large share of borrowed foreign tech, did nothing to address its overreliance on imports. In early 2022, Russian aircraft accounted for 18% of the fleet (excluding business jets and helicopters) of Russia's 20 largest carriers by the number of passengers. Another 39% were European planes, 36% were American, 4% Canadian, and the remaining 3% were Brazilian.

As practice has shown, anti-Russian sanctions can take months to develop and another half a year to enforce – which was the case with the partial oil embargo – but no one beat around the bush with civil aviation. As early as on February 26, the EU stripped Russian airlines of the right to use European planes. New supplies, maintenance of the already purchased liners, and aircraft insurance were no longer available. The restrictions also included the mandatory return of leased planes within a month – before March 28.

As the Cirium analytical agency calculated, Russia was leasing 55% of its aircraft fleet from international corporations. Out of 980 liners servicing passenger flights, 515 planes with an aggregate value of $10 billion belonged to foreign owners. Late in March, Savelyev confirmed these statistics in his new capacity as the Minister of Transport.