Didn't take off
Russian aviation is losing its wings.
Author: Tatyana Rybakova
Russian airlines are cutting flights, and the number of flight delays is growing—not only due to drone strikes or bad weather, but also because aircraft breakdowns have become more frequent and the number of spare aircraft has dwindled. Russian aviation is slowly but surely deteriorating: sanctions have cut airlines off from foreign supplies of equipment and spare parts, bans on overflights through EU airspace have increased the costs of many routes, and aircraft manufacturers' promises to provide domestic replacements for imported aircraft have remained just that. Regional flights are the hardest hit.
There is nothing to fly on
The Air Transport Operators Association (ATO) has published an analytical report report on the state of the industry by the end of 2025. The document is powerful and reads less like a success story and more like a cry for help. Judge for yourself.
The report's very first conclusion: airlines are operating at the limits of their physical efficiency. On the one hand, seat occupancy rates are at a record 89,5%. On the other hand, this isn't generating any revenue. Air travel margins plummeted by 30,4% last year. This is because expenses, outpacing revenue growth (8,6%), completely offset the full capacity of flights.
The sell-out crowd, however, isn't due to a sudden increase in passenger traffic—overall passenger traffic fell by 2,5%. The problem is that the airline fleet has shrunk by 23 aircraft over the past year. Meanwhile, foreign aircraft have fallen by 47. The reason? Airlines that relied on Boeing and Airbus aircraft until 2022 have been cut off since the war, not only from purchasing new aircraft but also from acquiring spare parts and authorized maintenance for existing aircraft. Without authorized maintenance (which involves testing the aircraft on the manufacturer's own rig), aircraft break down more often. There's no official procurement of spare parts from the manufacturer—parts are supplied through "gray" schemes of unknown quality and without verification of their authenticity. Low-quality parts are expensive and take a long time to arrive, and there's no sufficient spare parts reserve. As a result, airlines are forced to resort to cannibalism, dismantling some of their aircraft for spare parts—which is how 47 foreign aircraft were lost.
Domestic aircraft could have improved the situation—fortunately, there have been plenty of stories over the years about how they were about to enter mass production. Incidentally, funding for this was also generously allocated.
Thus, in 2022, a state program for the development of the aviation industry was approved in Russia. provided for The program was to produce 1000 aircraft by 2030 and had a total cost of 1 trillion rubles. It's now in its fifth year since the program's adoption. Last year, 11 aircraft were delivered. And in mid-April, the Ministry of Industry and Trade объявилThat the state program's parameters have been changed. Now, only 570 aircraft are to be delivered, not 1,000, and by 2035, not 2030. And the program now requires three times as much, not just a trillion rubles.
Goodbye aviation industry
The country's air fleet fell victim to the problems of the aviation industry, which was never able to restore the full cycle of aircraft manufacturing.
When Russia entered the international air travel market in the 90s, it became clear that the Soviet-era aircraft in service were unsuitable for international flights. First, they were too noisy, cutting off EU airspace. Second, they were incredibly fuel-hungry, which was unimportant in a planned economy but became a decisive factor when airlines adopted a market economy. Third, passenger traffic plummeted in the 90s: the impoverished population simply couldn't afford air travel. Aircraft factories ground to a halt, with production remaining on a shoestring, only to retain specialists. Unfortunately, maintaining the technological cycle proved impossible.
The 2000s brought the country revenues from high oil prices, and wealthy citizens began flying—not just to the resorts of the Krasnodar region, but also abroad. Passenger traffic grew exponentially, but the Soviet fleet couldn't meet airline demand. Companies began buying foreign aircraft: first used, then new. Aeroflot, as a state-owned company and the recipient of payments for foreign airlines' flights over Russia along the polar route, at one point even became the airline with the newest fleet in the world.
Of course, there was an understanding that Russia needed its own aircraft. Moreover, attempts to create such an aircraft had never ceased. But somehow, the former giants of the aviation industry, the Ilyushin Design Bureau and the Tupolev Design Bureau, were unable to produce a stone flower that met modern requirements. So the decision was made to focus on developing an aircraft that would be developed by the newly established civil aircraft bureau within the Sukhoi Design Bureau, which until then had been creating truly advanced military Sukhois.
In 2000, when the design bureau became a holding company, development of a completely domestic aircraft began. It was decided that it would be a short-haul aircraft—the most in-demand aircraft on the air travel market—and would replace the aging Tu-134. To fully comply with best international practices, Sukhoi partnered with the American corporation Boeing (marketing and project promotion), the Ilyushin Aviation Complex (KPI production), the French corporation Snecma (aircraft engine development), and NPO Saturn, which, with French assistance, would develop these engines. In 2003, the RRJ-75, as the aircraft was originally called, won the competition against designs from the Tupolev Design Bureau and the Myasishchev Design Bureau. The expert commission was won over by the fact that extra-budgetary funding was planned for the RRJ-75 (2,37 billion rubles out of 3,83 billion until 2015) and the faster receipt of international certifications. To speed up the process, it was even decided to abandon the development of a domestic engine and use foreign components, primarily avionics, which the domestic aviation industry has always had problems with.
In fact, even at this stage, it was clear that only the aircraft's shell would be domestically produced: the airframe (Soviet aircraft manufacturers had their roots in glider design and had always excelled at aerodynamic design), tires (due to cheaper petrochemicals in Russia), cabin interiors, and non-critical components—engines, avionics, navigation systems, etc.—were expected to be imported. However, the aircraft would meet the highest standards of world-class comfort and easily pass international certification, allowing it to conquer foreign markets, asserted the then head of Sukhoi's civil division, now rector of the Moscow Aviation Institute. Mikhail PogosyanI remember how, at the MAKS International Air Show in 2007, he presented the RRJ project—which by then had been renamed the Sukhoi Superjet 100—and asked airline representatives to tell him what they needed from the new aircraft: “We’ll do everything!”
However, difficulties arose. The new engine wasn't working out well. The design itself began to be modified to increase capacity and range—it became clear that the most demand was not for regional domestic flights, but for longer international flights. As a result, the aircraft was intended to fill the niche of the medium-haul Tupolevs (Tu-334 and Tu-214/214), which were being developed by the Tupolev bureau, and also compete directly with the world's most popular medium-haul Boeing 717.
I don't know how true the "secret" stories of the aircraft's developers about the machinations of competitors are, but the fact remains that the aircraft only entered serial production in 2011, in a form significantly cheaper than the original plans, and very soon began to draw complaints from both pilots and airlines.
The first accident involving the new aircraft occurred in 2012 during a demonstration flight in Indonesia, resulting in the country canceling a contract for 30 aircraft, even though the crash was acknowledged to be due to weather conditions and pilot error. In 2016, the Russian airline Red Wings abandoned the aircraft (it returned to the aircraft in 2020), and in 2018, the Irish airline CityJet did the same. Aeroflot, initially considered the primary customer, fought tooth and nail for years to secure deliveries, preferring to use even the acquired aircraft on flights operated by its regional subsidiaries.
As a result, the Sukhoi Superjet New model was announced in 2018, with maximum import substitution and deliveries commencing in 2023. Flight tests of the Sukhoi Superjet New are still ongoing. The latest news is the certification of a domestic engine for the aircraft once again. postponed. Tupolev aircraft, which the Superjet once overtook, have now also resumed development of modernized airliners, but when they will actually be delivered to airlines (and what quality they will be) is unknown.
It can be concluded that Russian aircraft manufacturing has failed to meet the strict requirements of global competition.
Loss-making flight
Meanwhile, many Russian airlines may not live to see the Russian aviation industry's 2035 peak, as planned by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. They are already heading full steam toward bankruptcy.
Airlines are suffering primarily from sanctions. Spare parts, repairs, rental, and leasing of aircraft have all become more expensive. According to the aforementioned AEVT report, rental and leasing costs increased by 15%, maintenance and repair costs by 14,8%, and airport services by 6%. Fuel prices even fell slightly thanks to the drop in oil prices last year. The decline in passenger traffic has also reduced demand for it. However, oil prices are now rising again, and Russian airlines are often forced to fly much longer routes than their foreign competitors due to the closure of EU airspace.
The decline in passenger traffic deserves special mention. It actually fell on domestic flights, by 3,8%. On interregional flights, it fell even more, by 4%. This is due both to the declining purchasing power of consumers, whose incomes are growing more slowly than airfare prices, and to the constant closure of the skies due to drone attacks on the most popular (and profitable) routes—Moscow, St. Petersburg, major cities, and southern resorts.
With profits falling, airlines are redirecting scarce aircraft to more profitable international routes (an 8,5% increase), but a significant portion of their passengers are being taken away by foreign competitors (their flight numbers grew by 16%, while passenger numbers increased by 21%), who have no problem flying over EU territory or overpaying for spare parts and maintenance. However, even without competitors, there are still no aircraft available to significantly increase international flights—and there will be even fewer of them.
Local transportation faces another problem: there are no planes there either. This year, the developer of the famous An-2 (or "corncob") proposed restore the airworthiness of approximately 700 idle aircraft, which will help resolve the shortage on local routes in the next five to seven years. The reason for the shortage? Another delay in the production of modern equivalents: the Ladoga, Osvey, and Baikal—they are currently unavailable. plan "put it into flight" by 2030. Meanwhile, small aircraft are vital for remote and hard-to-reach communities. Today, they must be served by helicopters, which is expensive, not always possible due to weather conditions, greatly limits cargo and passenger capacity, and cuts off the possibility of establishing regular service. Is it surprising that, under these conditions, Russian airlines cut back regional flights.
The only real question now is: how soon will airline bankruptcies begin? Industry sources say there's no money to support them, and the government has decided not to force companies into bankruptcy, saying that those who survive will survive. It's possible that only the semi-state-owned Aeroflot will survive under these circumstances.
By the way, he did it without prior arrangement. shifts Import substitution of its aircraft fleet beyond 2036. The company still has plenty of imported aircraft, as well as the capacity to source the necessary parts, and the financial resources. So, it can wait for the arrival of domestically produced aircraft, as promised by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and then decide whether to put pilots and passengers on them. Fortunately, given current trends, Aeroflot could once again become a monopoly, as it did in Soviet times.
In short, the Soviet slogan "Fly Aeroflot" may once again be relevant. And those who didn't get a seat, a route, or didn't have enough money—stay home.
