16:41, 19.08.2025

While the Kremlin is making loud statements about “import substitution,” the Russian civil aircraft industry risks not surviving until the end of the 2020s. Literally. Today, there is not a single program in Russia that has not turned into a comedy and farce in recent years.

In August, Reuters reported that a massive program to revive the aviation industry that Moscow launched shortly after the start of the war against Ukraine had failed. Of the 15 commercial aircraft planned for 2025, manufacturers were able to deliver only one to carriers.

In total, in 2022-2025, the Russian civil aviation fleet was replenished with 13 new aircraft – 12 Superjets and one Tu-214. Moreover, the latter is not used for passenger transportation: it is flown by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov.

For comparison, in 2021, the Russians added 52 new commercial aircraft to their fleet, including 27 from Airbus, three from Boeing, and 22 Sukhoi Superjets that were built with imported components.

The Russians admit that they currently have neither the component base, nor the technology, nor the production capacity, nor the engineers. It is already clear that this situation will not change tomorrow, nor by the end of the decade.

To competitors – as to the moon: key industry figures

The Russian aircraft industry was feeling “not very well” even before the Kremlin’s aggression began. The deadlines for testing machines were constantly postponed, and the total number of aircraft built was meager, even when compared to the civilian aircraft industry of the USSR.

Thus, only about 230 units of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 have been built over the years, while, for example, the total number of Tu-154s built is estimated at 1,026 airliners.

It makes no sense to compare with Western aircraft manufacturers (primarily Boeing and Airbus), because the number of aircraft there is measured in tens of thousands. For example, the Airbus A320 was built in an amount of more than 12 thousand units.

On the other hand, the actual goal of Russian aircraft manufacturers was also much more modest, because, despite loud statements, there was never any talk of global competition with Western giants. The maximum program was to reduce the dependence of Russian airlines on European and American machines.

The fact is that, at least until recently, Boeing and Airbus aircraft made up about two-thirds of the Russian commercial fleet, and if you look at the number of passengers carried, the share reached 90%.

Russia wanted to demonstrate to everyone (first of all, to itself) that it had not lost all its “polymers” and could still produce civilian airliners.

However, while this was barely possible before the war, sanctions have destroyed even the imitation of progress. The restrictions have proven very painful for programs that were almost entirely dependent on the West.

Sukhoi Superjet 100: when the first pancake is really a waste

Perhaps the most illustrative example here is the aforementioned Sukhoi Superjet, for which the Franco-Russian SaM146 turbofan engine was once created.

The regional plane was designed to carry up to a hundred passengers and was supposed to become a symbol of the “renaissance” of Russian civil aircraft manufacturing. Instead, it has become the main laughing stock of the Putin regime.

Immediately after the aircraft entered service (2011), airlines began to report losses related to its use. Attempts to get rid of the new product began. Here are some figures.

According to Rosaviatsia, the average flight time of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 in the Russian Federation in 2018 was 3.6 hours per day. For comparison, the Airbus 320 and Boeing 737-800 flew an average of 10 and 11 hours per day, respectively.

The reason for the low number of flights was called long delivery times for spare parts, as well as problems with the engines. In general, the aircraft turned out to be too heavy (this is a common problem for the Russian aviation industry), and also not reliable and economical enough.

However, today the Russian Federation is in no hurry to abandon the Sukhoi Superjet, because there is practically nothing to replace it with. Foreign alternatives are unavailable due to sanctions, while old machines are dying.

Recently, the Superjet has been actively “import-substituting”. On March 17, 2025, the first flight of a prototype of a modified aircraft with two new Russian PD-8 engines took place in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. At first glance, this is a joyful event for the Russian Federation. However, the airlines themselves sadly admit that not everything is so simple, because first you need to understand whether the transition to PD-8 is advisable “from the point of view of operating costs.”

So, a long-suffering program still has a lot of new challenges and problems ahead of it. We will witness many of them in the near future.

MS-21: the main hope of the Russian aviation industry

If the Superjet was a “pen attempt”, then the short- and medium-haul MS-21 was supposed to establish the Russian Federation as one of the main aircraft manufacturers in Europe or even the world.

Unlike the Superjet, this is a really large aircraft, designed for 132-211 passengers, which theoretically could compete with the Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 Max.

Has it been possible to implement the plan? This is easy to understand if you look at the number of machines built. As of 2023, there were eight of them.

“The MS-21 is positioned as a direct competitor to aircraft such as the Boeing 737-900 and Airbus A321neo,” aviation market expert Bohdan Dolintse told UNIAN. “But these aircraft have been in operation for years, they have shown their real market efficiency. At the same time, the MS-21’s market entry has been postponed for more than six years. It does not yet have any truly confirmed characteristics.”

Indeed, back in 2009, serial production of the aircraft was supposed to begin in 2016, but it was repeatedly postponed and as of now, it is planned to begin only next year.

One of the main problems with the aircraft is its price, which has recently skyrocketed. Today, the MS-21 costs 7.6 billion Russian rubles ($96 million or almost 4 billion hryvnias), although back in the summer of 2023 its cost was estimated at 4.3–4.6 billion rubles ($50–54 million at the time). At the same time, even at the old price, the aircraft was almost the most expensive in its class.

For comparison, as of 2023, the list price of the Airbus A320/A321 and Boeing 737 MAX was about $100 million, but the market price was lower and was about $50 million per aircraft.

Another problem is operation. On paper, everything is fine, because the MS-21 flies with Russian systems, in particular, new PD-14 turbofan engines, created by a Russian company with the telling name “Aviadvigatel”.

But whether they can be compared with foreign analogues, in particular, Pratt & Whitney engines, is an open question. Typically, Russian engines have a shorter service life, are more difficult to maintain, and are generally less reliable. All this cannot but affect the operation of the aircraft itself.

“The critical element of this aircraft, as in the Sukhoi Superjet project, remains the engines. These are Russian-made PD-14 engines. So far, they have not confirmed their claimed efficiency, safety, and maintainability. In general, aircraft engine manufacturing has always been critical for Russia, and this is not surprising, because Soviet aviation was built on the basis of Ukrainian engines produced by Motor Sich,” says Bogdan Dolintse.

In the case of the MC-21, there is another problem that Russian experts do not often talk about. Perhaps the aircraft’s developers have partially lost their dependence on the West, but at the same time have become even more dependent on China.

“The MS-21 is critically dependent on Chinese components and accessories. China’s participation in this project is estimated by various estimates at up to 50%,” says the aviation expert.

Il-114-300: turboprop “ghost” of the USSR

It is worth talking separately about the new aircraft for local airlines, which is very important for the Russian Federation, given the vast territories and the inaccessibility of certain areas.

As an inheritance from the USSR, the Russians received the Il-114 turboprop short-haul passenger aircraft, which was to replace the An-24 family of aircraft, and on some regional routes, the Tu-134 and Yak-40 turbojets (all of these are very old Soviet aircraft).

And although the first flight of the Il-114 took place in 1990, only about 20 such aircraft were built.

The project was in limbo for a long time. Finally, in 2015, it was announced that production of the aircraft would resume at the Nizhny Novgorod Sokol plant. The first prototypes were planned to be delivered by 2017, based on the remaining fuselages from production at the Tashkent Aircraft Plant.

The updated aircraft was named the Il-114-300. The test dates were postponed several times, so the first flight of the newly built aircraft was carried out only in March last year.

The Il-114-300 has a maximum capacity of 68 seats. The aircraft is equipped with a TV7-117ST-01 engine, which is a new development of the St. Petersburg enterprise “UDK-Klimov”. The Il-114-300 should have a flight range with a maximum fuel reserve (with a load of 1300 kg) of 5000 km. The cruising speed is 500 km/h.

For a regional aircraft of this class, the numbers look acceptable, even though we are dealing with a Soviet long-term project. But the devil, as always, is in the details, which are actually quite significant.

Price comes first again. As previously reported, over the past two years, the price of the Il-114-300 has increased from 1.44 to 2.6 billion Russian rubles ($33 million).

The first three aircraft of this model will cost 4 billion apiece. This is comparable to the price of the Canadian Bombardier or the European ATR, which have similar flight characteristics, but are economical, reliable and time-tested (the Il-114-300 itself has not yet proven anything, except that it is an expensive “toy”).

Simply put, Russians will once again have to buy a pig in a poke. And this pig may turn out to be not only expensive, but also dangerous.

“Baikal” of discord: when the patient is not quite alive

The Sukhoi Superjet, the MC-21, and the updated Il-114 can be called the main projects of Russian civil aircraft construction (especially the first two). However, they are far from the only ones.

Russia has also revived the Soviet designs for the medium-haul Tu-204 (now called the Tu-214) and the wide-body Il-96. These are dead-end branches of evolution that were doomed to failure from the start due to their uneconomical nature and general archaic nature.

And perhaps the most telling story is the story of the new “corn harvester” LMS-901 “Baikal”, which was supposed to replace the legendary Soviet An-2 (which is the same “corn harvester”). However, it never happened.

Before us is another long-term project, the development of which started back in the 2010s, while it made its first flight only in 2022. At that time, it used the Czech-American General Electric H800-200 engine (later it was supposed to be replaced with the new Russian VK-800SM).

The Russians wanted to create an aircraft that could carry up to nine passengers or up to 2,000 kg of cargo over a range of 1,500 km with a cruising speed of up to 300 km/h.

It was planned to produce 154 such aircraft by 2030, and then the production plan was reduced to 139 aircraft. In March, it became known that the first deliveries of the Baikal aircraft are planned to begin only in 2026.

But even that probably won’t happen, because lately Baikal has turned into a kind of Schrödinger’s cat. That is, no one can say whether it is dead or alive.

In May, Russian media reported that the project had been shut down because it had not met expectations. It was reported that problems had been identified with low-speed stability, high steering effort, and the need to increase the tail and redesign the landing gear.

Another problem was the high price. Over the past few years, the cost of the LMS-901 Baikal has increased from 178 million Russian rubles ($2.3 million) to 315–320 million ($4–4.1 million). This has made the aircraft almost “golden” – at least for its class.

At the same time, the story of the “Baikal” is far from over, because, according to official Russian data, the development of the LMS-901 continues, despite reports of its “death.” Today, the aircraft is still undergoing tests.

Suffer and fall: what awaits ordinary Russians

The situation that Russian civil aviation finds itself in is actually quite dramatic. After all, ordinary Russians who cannot afford a private jet will suffer.

The actual inability of the Russian Federation to mass-produce passenger aircraft means that citizens will fly on old Boeing and Airbus aircraft, for which there have been no parts and components for a long time.

This has already led to an increase in the accident rate. In just 11 months of last year, there were 208 air accidents – a quarter more than in 2023. Almost every second case is associated with engine failure or chassis failure (i.e., critical elements on which the lives of passengers directly depend).

Even the head of the state corporation Rostec, Sergei Chemezov, recently admitted that in the coming years, Russian airlines will be forced to write off at least 200 foreign aircraft.

It is quite difficult to predict the consequences of this, as it is a complex and multifaceted process. One can only assume that at some stage the Russians will have to purchase Chinese airliners.

But here too, things are not so simple. So far, the flagship of the PRC – Comac C919 – does not feel much better than the MC-21. Since its first flight in 2017, only a few dozen of these airliners have been built. Therefore, it is premature to give any guarantees today.

Ilya Vedmedenko

(C)UNIAN 2025