Russia has disrupted the plan to deliver domestic aircraft

Russia was supposed to produce almost one thousand new civil aircraft by 2030, but now these plans will be revised. Auditors came to the conclusion that there is no "economically justified demand" for such a number of domestic aircraft in the country. This is reported by Kommersant, citing sources in the Russian aviation industry.

The "hastily drawn 2022" comprehensive aviation industry development program (CIDP) will be reviewed and adjusted after an audit of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) plants. In its current form, the CIDP does not reflect either the industry's capabilities or the airlines' needs, the newspaper's source explains.

Analysts have noticed serious problems with the growth of aircraft production costs. The main problem is that "import-substituted" versions of aircraft have become more expensive due to domestic parts. For example, the MS-21 used to have American P&W engines costing 800-900 million rubles. Now these airliners are equipped with Russian PD-14 engines for almost 1.8 billion rubles each. Because of this, the MS-21 will cost 8.9 billion rubles by 2027, where almost 6 billion are the costs of purchased components (PCI), Kommersant calculated.

The newspaper writes that Russia does not need the number of airliners declared in the KPGA. UAC plans to produce 140 to 270 aircraft per year, while the real need is estimated at 50-60 aircraft. At the same time, demand is heavily skewed towards the MS-21. There are already too many SJ-100 airliners left after Aeroflot decided to abandon 89 aircraft of this model in favor of the MS-21.

In addition, the export plans included in the KPGA are unlikely to be feasible. For example, the same MS-21 will be in demand only by a narrow list of "friendly" countries and, most likely, only single deliveries will be made. The SJ-100, due to its size of 100 seats, turned out to be of no use either in Russia or abroad, the publication writes.

At the same time, auditors noted a shortage of MS-21. The publication's source claims that UAC is aware of this problem and has already found a solution. They are confident that airlines have enough foreign aircraft left that will cover demand by extending the flight time. The current fleet consists of 880 aircraft - they are quite enough to transport at least 113 million passengers per year, UAC believes. These passenger flow figures should be maintained until 2029, which means that additional production volumes will be excessive.

This is not the first time that adjustments have been made to the production plans for Russian aircraft. In May 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Trade reduced the number of aircraft being designed: now factories must produce 994 aircraft, although it was originally planned to produce 1,080 units. The start of deliveries was moved to 2025. The Ministry of Transport planned that the fleet of foreign aircraft would be reduced to 319 aircraft by 2030, compared to 738 airliners in 2022.

The audit at UAC plants was conducted by a group of consultants from Sberbank and Gazprom Neft on behalf of the government. In particular, UAC produces SJ-100, MS-21, Il-114 and Tu-214 aircraft. The results of the audit and the prospects of the aviation industry will be discussed at a closed meeting with Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. It will take place next week.

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