The program for the supply of domestic aircraft is shifted by two years

The program worth hundreds of billions of rubles for the supply of domestic aircraft is being postponed by two years. We are talking about all civilian projects – MS-21, SJ-100, Tu-214, Il-114 and Baikal. The aviation industry does not have time to test aircraft within the deadlines set for 2022, and their characteristics do not correspond to those originally planned. Thus, the flagship MS-21 became almost 6 tons heavier, which is why its flight range and altitude were significantly reduced. The Ministry of Industry and Trade expects that supply plans will be made up in the future. A number of Kommersant sources consider these expectations to be impossible to meet in the conditions of the Northern Military District. Some of them expect a fleet shortage and assume that carriers will have to look for aircraft in friendly countries.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Rostec state corporation have officially announced the postponement of the delivery of all Russian passenger aircraft being developed to replace the Western fleet – SJ-100, MS-21, Tu-214 and Il-114-300. Deliveries were supposed to begin in 2024, but have now been pushed back to 2025-2026. In addition, according to Kommersant, the certification of the Baikal aircraft of the Ural Civil Aviation Plant has been postponed to 2024, the start of deliveries to 2025.

The characteristics of all these aircraft, for various reasons, do not correspond to those initially declared, which is why they do not have time to undergo certification.

Thus, for the flagship of the Russian fleet MC-21-310, the key problem was a heavier airframe.

Based on the manufacturer’s data, the weight of the empty import-substituted aircraft compared to the previous version (MS-21-300 with an airframe using foreign components and Western engines) increased by 5.75 tons. According to Kommersant’s interlocutors, this was due to the use of domestic composite and new aircraft systems.

As a result, the flight range with a maximum commercial load of 20.3 tons will be reduced, according to Kommersant, to less than 2.8 thousand km, and according to some sources – less than 2 thousand km. At the same time, the maximum flight altitude that the aircraft can now master is 7 km. Without reducing the weight of the aircraft itself and its systems, according to Kommersant’s interlocutor in the aviation industry, achieving the planned performance characteristics will be unattainable. “It’s impossible to increase engine thrust by 20%,” he says.

Rostec, commenting on the problems with the “weight characteristics” of the MC-21, said that “the final appearance of the completely import-substituted aircraft will be formed in the second half of this year.” “The phased implementation of the program for lifting restrictions during flight tests will allow us to bring the aircraft to parameters that meet the highest requirements of airlines. This also applies to the possibility of ensuring good operating economics within the widely accepted range of Russian airlines of 3 thousand km and a capacity of about 150–170 passengers,” the state corporation said.

The main problem of the SJ-100 was the PD-8 engine, which has not yet confirmed its characteristics in tests.

“At the end of December 2023, during tests, the need for additional work on the PD-8 engine was identified. The task is to ensure its reliability in all modes and guarantee safe operation,” a representative of UEC, the engine developer, told Kommersant.

According to the comprehensive strategy for the development of the aviation industry until 2030, approved in 2022, the domestic aviation industry should receive 1,036 passenger aircraft. Of these, the Aeroflot group should receive 339 aircraft over seven years. It was assumed that deliveries of the MC-21 would begin in 2024 (six units), in 2025 – 12, in 2026 – 22. The first SJ-100 were supposed to arrive in 2023, and from 2024 it was planned to deliver 20 aircraft each. The first three Tu-214s were also expected to be received in 2023, seven more in 2024, ten in 2025. Delivery of ten IL-114s was expected by 2025 (for the transfer, see Kommersant of September 19, 2023).

Rostec explained that the original time frame for the program of import-substituted civil aircraft, adopted until 2022, was targeted at 2026. Then they were shifted to the left. In 2026, the corporation plans to transfer 30 new SJ-100 aircraft to companies. The first new Tu-214, according to the UAC, was delivered in a special version to the state customer in 2023, and another vehicle is planned to be delivered in 2024.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade clarified that a backlog of aircraft has already been formed: “In particular, 16 Superjets and 12 MS-21 are in varying degrees of readiness and will be equipped with Russian systems as they become available.” The department expects that this will allow, after completion of the tests, to ensure “a follow-up schedule for the production and delivery of aircraft in order to generally implement the replenishment of the fleet with 600 aircraft by 2030.”

A question of priorities

When assessing the realism of the production forecast until 2030, two key problems should be taken into account, says Oleg Panteleev, executive director of the AviaPort agency: the availability of trained personnel and a fleet of machines, as well as financing. Today, the capabilities of Russian industry are prioritized for the tasks of the state defense order. The expert proceeds from the fact that the end of the SVO will be a powerful incentive for the production of civil aircraft: “Capacity and, most importantly, specialists will be freed up.”

Previous deadlines were based on calculations by aircraft manufacturers, who, in turn, were based on promises from second- and third-tier suppliers. But, as practice shows, even first-tier suppliers do not always have contracted components for their own systems, notes Oleg Panteleev.

The deadlines named in 2022 were set based on the expectation that the certification of equipment would proceed smoothly, but the international practice of all aircraft manufacturing programs without exception shows that not a single project is completed without “failures and delays.”

The basic scenario of the aviation strategy until 2030 provides for a reduction in the fleet of foreign passenger aircraft by half, to 300 units, excluding local aircraft. At the end of January, the Russian Union of Travel Industry said that from 2027 on domestic routes there may be a shortage of carrying capacity, “since the Russian aviation industry does not have time to introduce new aircraft.” According to Kommersant’s sources in the industry, this could lead to private carriers – primarily S7, where they encountered problems in servicing the Airbus neo fleet (see “Kommersant” dated October 11, 2023), and Ural Airlines – will be forced to look for aircraft on the secondary market of friendly countries. The second hypothesis concerns allowing foreign carriers to fly between Russian cities and work more actively with Russian companies under codeshare agreements. Thirdly, they believe, in the event of a critical shortage of capacity, the Ministry of Transport may limit the admission of Russian carriers to foreign destinations, concentrating the fleet within the country. The Ministry of Transport and airlines did not comment.

In 2023, the Ministry of Transport announced the readiness of Russian airlines to support the bulk of the fleet of foreign aircraft at least until 2030. Therefore, the plans of the aviation industry and the capabilities of airlines are now “overlapping,” says Oleg Panteleev. But if previously there was about five years between the start of large-scale deliveries of domestic aircraft and the retirement of a significant part of the fleet, now, the expert states, the time reserve is not so great.

Aigul Abdullina