S7 will cut the winter schedule due to problems with the Airbus 321neo engines

Russian airline S7 will reduce its autumn-winter schedule by 10-15% compared to last year due to problems with the repair of American engines installed on Airbus A320/A321neo aircraft after the introduction of sanctions in response to Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. “Kommersant” writes about it.

Now about 20% of the S7 fleet, which includes 103 aircraft, does not fly and is under maintenance, including 14 of 39 A321neos.

According to one of Kommersant’s sources, S7 wanted to get rid of Airbus neo planes and will request permission from the Ministry of Transport to export at least 22 planes abroad. However, the airline stated that they had not submitted applications for the export of aircraft abroad and were “looking for a solution to repair the P&W (Pratt & Whitney) engines.”

According to the experts interviewed by the publication, problems with Airbus neo may also arise at other airlines, since the latest generation Pratt & Whitney engines are not repaired either in Russia or in Iran, where Russian airlines send their planes for maintenance due to sanctions.

Russian airlines have learned to circumvent sanctions when importing spare parts, but the engines of the new generation are “chipped”, their movement is controlled. It is impossible to service the engines of these aircraft without official support and software updates, as well as importing them using gray schemes, experts note.

In the summer of this year, P&W recalled more than a thousand of its engines due to problems. As a result, no less than 57 airlines in Europe and the United States withdrew aircraft with such engines from operation.

In addition to the S7 fleet, there are 73 A320/A321neo aircraft in Russia. 58 of them belong to Aeroflot, 11 belong to Ural Airlines. The French-American CFM Leap engines are installed on them, with which there are fewer problems, the Kommersant source said. For example, according to Flightradar24, Aeroflot has one A321neo idle. “Ural Airlines” flies all planes of this modification.

• At the end of February 2022, after the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the United States, the European Union and other countries imposed restrictions on the flights of Russian airlines. The EU banned the export to Russia of goods and technologies used in the aviation and space sectors, as well as the insurance and maintenance of goods related to these industries.