Aeroflot to acquire five Boeing 737-800 Freighters to provide spares for passenger 737s
January 5, 2025
The sanctions imposed following the start of Russia’s illegal and barbaric invasion of Ukraine has made the acquisition of parts for western-made commercial aircraft operated by Russian airlines increasingly difficult.
Aeroflot has reportedly commissioned Rosatom to reverse engineer certain Airbus and Boeing parts for use on its aircraft – an illegal and high risk strategy which risks the technical, legal and actual airworthiness of the aircraft that use them.
The Russian flag carrier has also resorted to cannibalising some of its stored aircraft for parts to keep other examples of the same type operational. Aeroflot is known to have raided some A350s for parts in just this way during 2022.
Another strategy has been to buy leased western-made aircraft, and then to cannibalize them for parts.
Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Aeroflot has reportedly bought 100 leased aircraft, some for use, and others for spare parts, often using investments from Russia’s National Wealth Fund (NWF) and the profits from its low-cost subsidiary, Pobeda, to fund insurance settlements on leased aircraft, and thereby take full legal ownership. In many cases, aircraft owned by western lessors had effectively been stolen by Russian airlines and had then continued to operate (illegally) in Russia. Following the invasion of Ukraine, many Russian airlines re-registered their western-manufactured, leased and registered aircraft and stopped making lease payments on them. Debts to the lessors accumulated, but Russian tax law will allow them to write off these accumulating leasing debts from 2025, after paying a 25% profit tax.
The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported on 6 December that Aeroflot plans to acquire five 737-800 freighters from Atran Airlines. These had been leased by Atran Airlines from Irish-American aircraft lessor AerCap. The five aircraft had their airworthiness certificates revoked by the Bermudan Aviation Authority in March 2022, in response to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, and they were stored at Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport. Aeroflot hopes to reach an insurance settlement with AerCap, under which ownership of the five 737 freighters will be transferred to Aeroflot.
They will then be cannibalised for spares (especially engines, landing gear, and avionics) to support the fleet of 42 passenger Boeing 737-800s operated by Aeroflot’s low-cost subsidiary Pobeda Airlines.
