The cost of the new Russian aircraft MS-21 will be 3.2 billion rubles

The new domestic passenger aircraft MS-21 will cost Russian airlines about 3.2 billion rubles. a piece. This was told to Vedomosti by a source in government agencies familiar with the details of the project. This is about two times cheaper than Boeing or Airbus of comparable capacity.

According to Sergey Chemezov, General Director of Rostec, the state will subsidize the purchase of these aircraft (AC) for domestic airlines, due to which the price will decrease. His words are quoted by RIA Novosti.

Chemezov also said that the cost of the new MS-21 for Aeroflot and other carriers will be significantly below the market. “This is a deliberate step by the state, which wants to reduce the burden on airlines and, consequently, on passengers whose ticket prices include a lease payment,” added the Rostec CEO. He noted that this is being done to develop domestic transportation.

Head of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC, is part of Rostec) Yuri Slyusar, in an interview with Vedomosti in October 2021, estimated the MS-21 catalog price at $ 97 million. This is 6.8 billion rubles. at the dollar rate at the time of the interview (October 18), and 7.3 billion rubles. according to the current. Thus, the state reduced the price of the aircraft for domestic carriers by more than half.

The catalog price of the competitor MS-21 Boeing 737-800 on the manufacturer’s website is $106.1 million. The European analogue from Airbus, the A320, was worth $101 million in the catalog, the Aviaport agency indicated in 2021.

Fedor Borisov, chief expert of the Institute of Economics and Transport Policy of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, considers the price for the MC-21 to be “good” for domestic airlines. But the expert recalled that 3.2 billion rubles. is not a market value. “Moreover, a lot will depend on the terms of the contract that the airlines will conclude,” he added.

Oleg Panteleev, executive director of Aviaport, calls the price for the MS-21 “ideal”. The expert noted that providing a discount to the first buyers of a new vessel is a normal market practice. That is, as the aircraft is used and its market value is confirmed, the price may increase, Panteleev admits.

The release of the first medium-haul MS-21 has been postponed more than once. One of the reasons is US sanctions against the Aerocomposite company (part of Rostec), which in 2018 led to a halt in the supply of imported materials for the composite wing of the aircraft (the project then required the production of domestic composites). Moreover, the MS-21 in the basic version was equipped with a PW1400G engine from the American Pratt & Whitney. An aircraft with foreign-made turbines and wings made of imported composites received a basic type certificate only in December 2021.

In the serial MS-21, domestic PD-14 engines are already installed, their development and manufacture is carried out by the United Engine Corporation (UEC, part of Rostec). At the end of December 2022, the installation of PD-14 on the latest liners was approved by the Federal Air Transport Agency. In April 2023, UEC began serial production of engines for MS-21.

According to the program for the development of the aviation industry until 2030, domestic carriers should receive 270 MS-21 aircraft. Most of the aircraft – 210 pieces – will be bought by “Aeroflot“, reported in the summer of 2022 the CEO of the airline, Sergei Aleksandrovsky, at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin (Vedomosti wrote about this on August 26, 2022). In September of the same year, at the WEF-2022, Aeroflot signed a contract with UAC for almost 1 trillion rubles. for the purchase of 339 domestic aircraft, including 210 MS-21s.

Firm orders for this type of aircraft in 2018 were placed by Red Wings (16 units) and Iraero (10 aircraft), as well as leasing companies VEB-Leasing,Sberbank Leasing” and “Ilyushin Finance”.

MS-21 has repeatedly received state support measures. In January 2019, the government allocated 10.5 billion rubles. for the creation, production and maintenance of these aircraft. Director General of Roscosmos Yuri Borisov, who in 2018 held the post of Deputy Prime Minister in charge of industry, then estimated the cost of creating MS-21 at 465 billion rubles. until 2025. In September 2022, the state allocated another 15 billion rubles to expand the production of MS-21, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said.