Izvestia: air carriers asked to extend maintenance intervals in exceptional cases

Aeroflot and other airlines are asking to introduce a procedure for exceptional extensions of maintenance intervals (TO) for Western aircraft. The proposal was sent to the Federal Air Transport Agency and Rostransnadzor. The newspaper reported “News” with reference to the adviser to the technical director of Aeroflot Marat Tereshchenko.

“We need to introduce two procedures. The first is the process of exempting operators from the requirements of standard documentation when their full implementation in a given format is impossible. For example, this is a procedure for exceptional service interval extensions. And the second is the procedure for alternative methods for determining compliance with the requirements of airworthiness directives,” Marat Tereshchenko said at the NAIS 2023 civil aviation infrastructure exhibition.

Mr. Tereshchenko noted that we are talking about one-time cases of extending the terms of repair and maintenance. According to him, in order to receive a deferral, air carriers must provide reasons and evidence that the deferred maintenance does not affect the safety of aircraft.

“Now there are still problems of access to repair documentation, technologies and equipment for repairing components, as well as the implementation of airworthiness directives issued by foreign aviation administrations,” he added.

In response to the entry of Russian troops into Ukraine, Western countries imposed tough sanctions against Russia, including the aviation industry. In early March 2023, Boeing and Airbus stopped maintenance of Russian aircraft. By information The Wall Street Journal, The US requires Turkey not to service Russian aircraft, including not to provide aircraft repair services.

Olesya Pavlenko