December 18, 2024

Where Are All the Planes?


Where Are All the Planes?
Sukhoi Superjet 100 flying over Italy. SuperJet International, Wikimedia Commons.

Obyedinyonnaya Aviastroitelnaya Korporatsiya (United Aircraft Corporation), a Russian aerospace and defense corporation with a majority stake held by the Russian government, planned to produce 108 airliners after the start of the Russian War in Ukraine. According to the BBC Russian Service, in the ensuing two years, only seven Superjet 100 aircraft and two experimental Il-96-400M and Il-114 planes have been produced.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Western countries imposed stringent sanctions on the Russian aviation industry. For instance, the import of aircraft and spare parts for aircraft are banned. In response, on June 27, 2022, the Russian government approved a program to develop the air transport industry through 2030.

The program set ambitious targets: 14 aircraft by the end of 2022, 25 in 2023, and 69 by the end of 2024. By 2030, the plan aimed to deliver 1,032 passenger planes. However, the program faltered almost immediately, and delivery deadlines have already been postponed twice.

A source in the aviation industry told the BBC Russian Service that the state program was “an imitation of activity” and intended primarily to “calm government nerves.”

The construction of new Sukhoi SuperJet 100 aircraft has been slowed by dependence on foreign components. Production stopped after sanctions cut off access to many of these parts. A stockpile of components had been reserved for production, but they were repurposed to maintain the airworthiness of existing planes. Efforts are underway to replace foreign components with domestic versions or to reorganize the supply chain to acquire foreign parts indirectly.

Similar challenges face the production of MS-21 aircraft. By 2025, seven engines are expected to be produced for this aircraft, enough to equip three MS-21s. Yet the updated aviation development program calls for nine MS-21s to be built by 2025.

In addition to new SSJ and MS-21 airliners, which were designed after the Soviet Union’s collapse, the program includes projects that originated during the Soviet era: the Il-96-300 and Tu-214. While these models are considered outdated both technologically and materially, they remain in the plan because of limited alternatives.

Even these older aircraft rely on foreign components that must be replaced through import substitution, the BBC Russian Service reported.

You Might Also Like

Ghost of Economy Future
  • December 15, 2024

Ghost of Economy Future

Russian analysts give their forecasts for what the economy might look like in early 2025.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955