Airlines in the Russian Federation may not have enough funds from the National Bank of Ukraine to purchase aircraft

At least five Russian airlines have received permission for an insurance settlement with Western owners for the purchase of approximately 80-90 aircraft. However, air carriers risk not being able to close deals on time. “Kommersant” writes about it today.

As the publication learned, the Ministry of Transport has not yet prepared the criteria that should determine which airlines and in what amount will be able to receive part of the 300 billion rubles from the National Welfare Fund (NWF), which the government planned to allocate to the purchase of Western aircraft.

According to a source close to the Ministry of Transport, the conditions of the transactions were agreed “or very close to it” in Aeroflot, S7, Ural Airlines, Rusline and the charter company iFly. However, there are less than three months left for the closing of transactions, since the permits received from the EU regulators expire on September 30, and an extension of the terms is unlikely, the publication writes.

In addition, air carriers are afraid that all 300 billion rubles allocated from the Federal Reserve Bank for these purposes may be received by the Aeroflot group. Currently, about a third of this amount has already been spent on the purchase of 10 Boeing 777-300ERs by Aeroflot, and, according to the publication, the company was actively discussing the possibility of buying at least 81 more aircraft. According to experts, the purchase of such a number of narrow-body aircraft will require an additional 200 billion rubles.

Kommersant’s interlocutors in private airlines admit that funds from the National Bank of Ukraine are not enough for everyone, but they hope that they will be able to finance at least part of their deals.

• Sanctions introduced against the Russian aviation industry after the large-scale invasion of Ukraine include a ban on the supply of aircraft to Russia, as well as a ban on flights of Russian aircraft to countries that have imposed sanctions, and the closure of their airspace. Insurance certificates were also revoked, and the planes that were leased were required to be returned by Russian airlines – which they did not do. Because of this, the majority of Russian planes can now fly abroad only to a limited number of countries.