It’s been almost two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, starting a war that no one thought would last this long. Sanctions aimed at crippling Russia’s economy and separating it from the rest of the world are still in place, although it seems their effect is not as strong as desired.
Among the sanctions, closure of airspace for Russian aircraft and the cease in supplying new aircraft or spare parts and even stopping access to pilot training have paralysed Russian aviation. However, flag carrier Aeroflot bet on domestic flights in addition to launching a new international network towards countries without sanctions, while private jet owners re-registered their planes and simply changed their holiday destinations to non-sanction countries.
While the sanctions came as no surprise to the rest of the world, Russian Minister of Transport, Vitaly Savelyev, recently told Russian media RBC that they were “taken by surprise” that they could not get back 76 aircraft that were abroad at the time the sanctions were imposed.
“We were unexpectedly taken by surprise by the decision to take away the planes. In total, we lost 76 passenger planes that were in technical storage, were being serviced abroad or were about to operate some flights. They were simply confiscated”, Savelyev said, adding that there are only 1,302 aircraft in Russia at the moment, 1,167 of which are passenger airliners.
In March 2022, flag carrier Aeroflot suspended all international flights for a while for fear of having their planes seized, however, soon after, Putin passed a law allowing for the inscription of foreign aircraft in the Russian national registry, thus making their repossession difficult. Savelyev said at the time that almost 800 aircraft were transferred to the domestic registry.
One year later, in March 2023, Savelyev announced that 300 billion roubles (about $3.9 billion) had been allocated to buy back aircraft from foreign leasing companies, but he has now revealed that negotiations are not going as planned. “There is a ban and a demand for return; they do not want to enter into negotiations on compensation for their payment and the purchase of planes from them”, he explained. But returning the aircraft before an agreement is reached is not a solution for Russia, since that “means leaving itself without aviation”, according to Savelyev.
