Ukraine War taking its toll : Due to lack of spares, Russia is now focussing on manufacturing indigenously built aircrafts

TTT NEWS SERVICE

KOLKATA, 1 JULY

Russia is planning to pump in $14 billion in the aviation sector in the next five years to ensure the usage of about 81 percent indigenously built aircrafts operated by the Russian airlines by 2030.

In a televised interview, the deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Yuri Borisov has unveiled the plan of the government in the aviation sector.

Due to the long ongoing war with the neighbouring country of Ukraine, Russia has been facing global sanctions which has put the aviation sector into further trouble due to lack of availability of spares, sources said.

Even delivery of two numbers of A350 aircrafts to Aeroflot has been recently cancelled.

The western aircraft manufacturers have been unable to provide both the regular maintenance jobs and also supplying continuous export of spare parts to Russian airlines operators.

In 2022, out of 187 aircrafts being operated by Russia’s largest airline , Aeroflot are indigenously developed, the rest are either supplied by airbus or boeing.

According to local reports, Aeroflot is now planning to purchase 300 aircrafts indigenously built by Russian company, United Aircraft Corporation.

At present about 400 aircrafts purchased from western manufacturers are being grounded in Russia . Due to the lack of availability of spare parts many aircrafts are not in flying conditions also, aviation industry sources said.

Due to the impact of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, all three major aircraft manufacturers – Airbus, Boeing, Embraer have pulled back all of their services.

Airbus and Boeing in fact account for two thirds of the entire fleet which are operated in the Russian sky. Boeing has also temporarily closed its office in Kyiv.

Thirty seven aircrafts have been scheduled to be handed over to the Russian airlines operators by the European Union aircraft manufacturing companies this year.

Besides the manufacturers and spare parts issues, many other companies related to the other services of the aviation sector have also stopped providing services because of the Ukraine invasion.