The planes were offered lifting – Newspaper Kommersant No. 169 (7370) dated 09/14/2022
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As it became known to Kommersant, the Russian authorities offered the airlines to buy out the planes of foreign lessors with the help of the National Welfare Fund. The Ministry of Transport asks companies to estimate how many aircraft and for how much they want to purchase. For these purposes, carriers can be given preferential loans for 15 years at 1.5%. Kommersant’s interlocutors in the aviation industry believe that the deals will be sporadic at best, but most likely will not develop: the terms of the EU and US sanctions do not allow foreigners to make such calculations.
As it became known to Kommersant, the Ministry of Transport offered the airlines to buy out the planes of foreign lessors at the expense of the National Welfare Fund. In a letter sent on August 30 to the 20 largest airlines (Kommersant has it), the ministry invites carriers to estimate how many of their remaining aircraft they are ready to purchase. It is assumed that for redemption they will be able to receive funds from the NWF at a rate of 1.5% for 15 years. The Ministry of Transport also asked carriers to provide a rationale for the market value of aircraft and the feasibility of buying out aircraft older than 20 years. In addition, the ministry requested a legal review of the “risks of secure and uninterrupted settlements” with lessors and “possible subsequent claims” on their part.
The Ministry of Transport declined to comment. In the Aeroflot group, S7, Utair, Ural Airlines, Red Wings, AzurAir and other airlines, they were also not given. Kommersant sent a request to the Ministry of Finance.
According to Kommersant’s sources in the aviation industry, the purchase of aircraft is hardly possible, since the European Commission, in the fifth package of sanctions, allowed its companies to execute only financial leasing contracts, while most aircraft are under operational leasing. After that, Aeroflot bought eight Airbus A330s from foreign owners, and Utair bought Boeing aircraft, including from European structures of SberLeasing. In total, according to sources in the leasing market, less than 50 aircraft from the entire fleet of 739 vessels registered abroad at the beginning of March were in finleasing from carriers from the Russian Federation.
At the end of March, the head of the Ministry of Transport, Vitaly Savelyev, said that the government would have to decide on the purchase of more than 500 aircraft from foreign lessors with a total residual value of $ 20 billion. But, according to Kommersant’s interlocutor close to the Ministry of Transport, now the amount of the purchase has not been approved.
Kommersant’s interlocutors in the airlines believe that deals are hardly possible, since the vast majority of aircraft, even of non-European owners, are registered in European subsidiaries. “Neither China nor the UAE would go for such schemes that violate sanctions,” one of them says.
“The initiative of the Ministry of Transport to buy out aircraft, on the one hand, can theoretically help normalize relations with foreign lessors, on the other hand, it can be practically unrealizable,” said Vladislav Rikov, adviser to BGP Litigation. Boris Rybak, director of Infomost, calls the proposal “a move in the right direction,” but whether it will be successfully implemented in practice “is impossible to predict in the current unprecedented situation.”
The EU cannot fail to understand that the purchase of even all the aircraft in any case will only be a postponement of the inevitable crisis in the Russian air transportation market due to their gradual failure, says Nikolai Titov, co-founder of atLegal law firm. Therefore, in his opinion, the EU authorities may go for a review of sanctions, enabling European companies to receive money for aircraft.
The idea of Russia buying foreign planes at the expense of the NWF “is not unbelievable,” said Artem Kasumyan, a lawyer at the Delcredere Bar Association. According to him, US and EU sanctions legislation provides for the issuance of general licenses to conduct transactions, and EU sanctions law also knows exceptions to general prohibitions on transactions with sanctioned persons.
The difficulty is that the issue is more political than economic, says Igor Smirnov, senior director for corporate ratings at Expert RA. Any potential easing of sanctions, in his opinion, “will cause many questions in the international community”: “Now it is easier for lessors to sit with accrued impairment reserves.” Acquiring ownership of the fleet could help airlines resolve the issue of arresting aircraft abroad, he admits, but at the same time, in his opinion, “most of the geography of Aeroflot’s flights is already closed in principle.” And in view of the closure of the EU airspace, the expert does not see “great operational benefits” in the purchase of boards.
The purchase of the park will allow Russian companies to solve two issues, the first of which is flights to countries that oppose dual registration of aircraft, Oleg Panteleev, the head of Aviaport, believes: for example, to China after the removal of covid restrictions. In addition, a number of “non-unfriendly countries” remain, flights to which do not allow increasing the shortage of a wide-body fleet cleared of the risks of arrest: the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Turkey and all of Southeast Asia. In the short term, Mr. Panteleev believes, it is unlikely that we will be able to buy the boards at the expense of the National Welfare Fund. In addition, this initiative does not solve the problem of the gradual decommissioning of the fleet due to the lack of supply of spare parts and support from the manufacturer.
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