Key Highlights
- State-owned engineer Rostec said that Russia’s aviation industry is aiming to go alone without the West, using locally built parts to produce 1,000 airliners by 2030 and end a reliance on Boeing (BA.N) and Airbus (AIR.PA).
- The remarks from Rostec, a huge state corporation headed by a close ally of President Vladimir Putin that includes Russia’s only manufacturer of civil aircraft, are the strongest indication yet that the aviation sector of the country sees the confrontation with the West as a permanent schism.
Rostec has run some of the prime industrial, defense and engineering assets of Russia since Putin signed a decree creating the corporation in 2007.
Russian airlines, including Aeroflot, spent on Boeing and Airbus aircraft as they sought to rebuild their fleets after the chaos of the 1990s. Forging a competitive domestic alternative will be hard.
According to aerospace analyst Richard Aboulafia, managing director of US-based AeroDynamic Advisor, the target of building 1,000 airliners by 2030 is impossible. He said when compared to the new seven-year goal, Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union had only built a combined total of nearly 2,000 large commercial jetliners.
Regarding modern jets, Russia’s only civilian planemaker, Rostec’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) (UNAC.MM), is limited by a lack of models, manufacturing capacity and foreign components.
According to the Russian aviation industry’s development plan to 2030, published by the government in June, Russia plans to produce 20 fully import-substituted regional jets known as Superjet-New annually from 2024 & 72 new medium-haul MS-21 from 2029, starting with six in 2024.
According to government documents, from 2022 to 2030, Russia plans to deliver 1,036 passenger planes. That includes locally designed 142 Superjet-New and 270 MS-21, 70 turboprop Il-114, 70 medium-haul Tu-214, and 12 wide-body Il-96. It was said that they believe this process is irreversible. Also, Boeing and Airbus planes will never be delivered to Russia.
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