Passenger airlines in Russia will receive cargo planes for dismantling for the first time. 

Cargo airline Volga-Dnepr will transfer eight of its Boeing aircraft, the passenger versions of which are operated by Pobeda, Rossiya, and Aeroflot itself, to Aeroflot on a financial lease. 

According to Kommersant, experts believe the transferred aircraft will not be used for cargo flights. Airlines will use the parts from them to repair other aircraft in their fleet.

"The economic efficiency of the deal is that acquiring the same volume of components will be several times more expensive," aviation experts comment.

Since the introduction of sweeping sanctions in 2022, which banned the supply of Boeing and Airbus aircraft and parts to Russia, the entire industry has been in survival mode.

The solution was so-called "aircraft cannibalism": one aircraft in the airline's fleet becomes a "donor." Parts are removed from it to support the operation of identical aircraft. Initially, airlines used aircraft from their own fleet for such repairs.

The current deal takes this process to a new, centralized level. Now the state, represented by NLK-Finance, is purchasing an entire fleet from one company to serve as a "spare parts bank" for another.