Regardless of their country, airlines do not own all of their aircraft. They rent most of it. In Russia, various companies, including the main Aeroflot, operate a total of 980 commercial aircraft. More than half, 520, are leased, mostly Boeings and Airbuses. Total cost: more than ten billion dollars.
In accordance with international sanctions imposed on Moscow, leasing companies, most often based in Europe, have until March 28 to terminate contracts and return their devices. But in fact it seems difficult, if not impossible.
As soon as new European and American sanctions were announced, Russian companies suspended flights abroad. Then almost all the planes were repatriated to shelter them. In the event of a dispute, the aircraft owner can hire a pilot and send him to the appropriate country to return the aircraft. But Moscow clearly does not intend to abide by the international agreements that Russia nevertheless signed. In order not to return the devices, the country may even nationalize them. This will allow it to maintain a sufficient fleet for domestic flights.
Renters would give up their devices, in particular the world’s number one R4. Only this Irish company owns 154 of the 520 aircraft leased to Russian companies. A fleet worth over two billion dollars. Nevertheless, nothing threatens her finances, even if Moscow refuses to cooperate. Because these aircraft make up only 5% of its global fleet.
The issue of maintenance will arise in a few months. Also, because of the sanctions, Airbus, Boeing and all their equipment manufacturers will refuse to send aircraft parts.
In this case, Russia risks doing the same as Iran, which has been under an embargo since 1995: buying counterfeit parts from China, producing them in-house, or taking certain aircraft out of the scheme to dismantle them and extract the parts needed to continue production. steal other devices. Then flight reliability becomes a real problem.