Deliveries of Russian civil aircraft have been delayed by two years

The program for the delivery of domestic aircraft, which are supposed to replace Western-made machines, has been postponed by two years: from 2024 to 2025–2026. This was reported by the Ministry of Industry and Trade and Rostec State Corporation.

We are talking about all civilian projects – MS-21, SJ-100, Tu-214, IL-114 and “Baikal”. According to the newspaper “Kommersant”, the aviation industry does not have time to test the planes within the established time, and their characteristics do not correspond to the originally declared ones.

The publication cites as an example the MS-21 passenger plane, the weight of which has increased by 5.75 tons compared to the previous version, which used foreign components and Western engines. The interlocutors of the newspaper believe that this happened due to the use of a domestic composite and new aircraft systems. With such an increase in mass, the flight range at maximum commercial loading will decrease. According to the Kommersant source, without reducing the weight of the aircraft itself and its systems, it will be impossible to achieve the planned flight-technical characteristics.

Rostec, commenting on the problems with the MS-21, stated that “the final form of the fully imported aircraft will be formed in the second half of this year.”

“Kommersant” estimates the cost of the domestic aircraft delivery program at “hundreds of billions of rubles.”