“Kommersant” found out the cost of the MS-21 aircraft for competitors of Aeroflot
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As it became known to Kommersant, the cost of the new Russian MS-21 aircraft with delivery in 2028-2030 is estimated at 4.3-4.6 billion rubles. STLC sent such a proposal to airlines that are not part of Aeroflot. This is more expensive than analogues from Airbus and Boeing, although subsidies from the NWF are included in the price. Aeroflot will get the planes cheaper: the Rostec leasing company will buy the MS-21 for it at 3.2 billion rubles. with delivery in 2023-2026, the deal will be fully financed from the NWF. Kommersant’s interlocutors on the market call the high price of the MS-21 “explainable at this stage”, but they expect that the state’s efforts to subsidize will not be limited to Aeroflot.
As it became known to Kommersant, the State Transport Leasing Company (GTLK) at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 offered several airlines to lease the MS-21 aircraft based on its price of 4.3-4.6 billion rubles. ($50–54 million) depending on the year of delivery. It was about deliveries in 2028-2030, the price took into account the receipt of subsidies from the National Welfare Fund for the purchase of aircraft, but their size was not specified.
For Aeroflot, the price will be different. In January, it was reported that the leasing company Aviacapital-Service (AKS, part of Rostec) will purchase 18 MS-21 aircraft from Irkut for 3.2 billion rubles. for transfer to Aeroflot from the end of 2023 to 2026. The supply of all 63 aircraft to the Aeroflot group (including 34 Superjet and 11 Tu-214) will cost 175 billion rubles. and will be fully financed from the NWF.
“Funds from the National Welfare Fund go and are brought to specific aircraft manufacturing companies,” Rostec told Kommersant. They did not comment on the STLC proposal, noting that “specific conditions may vary depending on the parameters of the transaction – the number of aircraft ordered, their configuration, delivery times, etc.” The representative of Rostec also repeated the April statement of the head of the corporation, Sergei Chemezov, that “the cost of new MS-21s for Russian carriers will be unequivocally lower than the market.” In STLC, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Irkut, “Kommersant” did not answer.
According to Kommersant’s data, at the end of 2021, STLC quoted an even higher cost of MS-21 than now, at 4.71-4.99 billion rubles. ($58-68 million at the exchange rate at the end of 2021). This price also took into account subsidies from the NWF and directly from the budget. Deliveries were expected in 2022–2024 with Pratt & Whitney engines now unavailable due to sanctions. The receipt of the offer by Kommersant was confirmed by sources in several airlines that are not part of the Aeroflot group.
They note that the agreements were not signed then: “The lessor only asked to confirm the interest.” Now Kommersant’s interlocutors suggest that for them the price of MS-21 will be higher than 5 billion rubles. if only because the price of the Russian PD-14 engine cannot be lower than that of the PW140 mass-produced in the USA.
Some interlocutors of Kommersant conclude that Russia has built perhaps the most expensive aircraft in this class. The catalog price of analogues of the MS-21 – Airbus A320 / A321 and Boeing 737-800 and MAX – is $100-105 million, but the market price is about $50 million or less. At the same time, the interlocutor of Kommersant in the industry emphasizes, “both the MS-21 itself and its resource remain a big surprise.” “What will be its turnaround time? What will be the terms of the subsidies? What is the lease term? If now it is being offered for 20–25 years, then will the resource be enough for the entire period, because with high operation it is more than 100,000 flight hours, an unattainable figure for aircraft manufactured in the Russian Federation,” he says.
Kommersant’s interlocutors in major airlines note that such a price for the MS-21 is quite understandable. But they are concerned about whether they can get aircraft at lease rates comparable to Aeroflot. This will largely depend on whether the lessors receive guarantees for further co-financing of purchases from the National Welfare Fund, since so far the funds are provided only for Aeroflot aircraft. “If Aeroflot has exclusive prices, while others pay one and a half to two times more for leasing, there will be no market at all,” notes a top manager of one of the airlines.
In total, Aeroflot should receive 210 MS-21 aircraft by 2030 out of 270 planned for production. The larger the batch, the cheaper it is and the lower the price of each vessel, says the interlocutor of Kommersant in Rostec.
The Ministry of Transport is aware of the concerns of carriers regarding the “market value” of the aircraft and the desire for leasing conditions comparable to Aeroflot, a Kommersant source in the industry says: “There is certainly a discussion about what will happen to prices after Aeroflot deliveries.” At the same time, he notes, “both carriers, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and UAC, and Irkut share the understanding” that it is impossible both to sell aircraft at cost and to include in the price the costs incurred by the program due to sanctions. The participants in the discussion, according to him, at this stage agree that the only way to “promote” the MS-21 program is the “nationalization” of Irkut’s expenses and preferential financial mechanisms.
MS-21 could not be cheaper than foreign counterparts, explains the interlocutor of Kommersant in the aviation industry. In the Russian Federation, expenses are lower only for salaries, while the purchase and production of materials and components cost comparable amounts or more. “There is no mass production, no other profitable projects that could “sponsor” the price of MS,” he says.
The difference in the price of delivery of the same aircraft is not a unique story; Boeing and Airbus have contract terms for different customers that can fundamentally differ depending on order volumes, terms, slots, and the history of their relationship, notes Fyodor Borisov, an expert at the HSE Institute of Transport Economics. However, only one supplier is currently available to Russian airlines. “Contract” at the prices offered by STLC will be able to those carriers who are pushed to do so by the shortage of the fleet, Mr. Borisov believes. If the company has a “fleet reserve” or the business model can tolerate a decline in traffic, then it can wait for conditions to improve beyond the 2027 horizon, he believes.
It is important for operators to reduce the price of the MS-21 on equal terms, says transport analyst Elena Sakhnova, and “solid long-term contracts would be beneficial, would allow the project to be scaled up and cost reduced.” She also believes that attracting additional funds from the National Welfare Fund to equalize the conditions for competition between Aeroflot and other airlines “is not an impossible task.”
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