"Terror on Wings": How Russia is losing the "pride" of its civil aviation.
The Russian civil aviation sector is one of the areas in the aggressor country’s economy where unprecedented sanctions have led to the closure of airspace, embargoes on spare parts, and refusals to service Western-made aircraft that are truly impactful.
A clear example is the Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft, which, due to a lack of Western spare parts, found itself on the verge of being taken out of service. The "pride of the Russian aviation industry," which has been unprofitable from the very beginning, has become dangerous for life after the imposition of sanctions: the number of incidents has doubled over two years.
It reached a point where, at the end of November 2024, five accidentsoccurred in just one day. Following this, "superjets" increasingly began to be referred to as "horrors on wings".
Import substitution is not going well for the Kremlin so far – domestic serial production is constantly declining, while the "cannibalization" of aircraft and schemes for supplying spare parts through Gabon, the UAE, China, and Turkey cannot mitigate the scale of the problems.
Only 40% Russian
The Sukhoi Superjet 100 (project RRJ-75) was initiated by the Sukhoi corporation in 2000. In 2001, the Russian government approved a federal program for the development of civil aviation, one of the points of which was the creation of a regional aircraft. Two years later, "Sukhoi" won a tender from "Rosaviakosmos" with its future SSJ-100 project, outpacing competitors from "Tupolev" (Tu-334).
The RRJ-75 project was supposed to receive off-budget financing of 2.3 billion rubles (76 million dollars at the then-exchange rate) by 2015 and a quicker acquisition of international certifications through the use of foreign components.
The aircraft was referred to as "a symbol of the revival of the Russian aviation industry" and "a hope for its full restoration." The SSJ-100 was conceived as an international project from the start – only in this way could it be promoted in the global market. Moscow intended to compete with the leaders in the global regional aircraft market – Canadian Bombardier and Brazilian Embraer.
Despite the propaganda advertising of the "pride of the Russian Federation," in reality, Russian components in the "Russian" aircraft made up no more than 40%. The engines were produced by the French company PowerJet, avionics by the French Thales, the power supply system by the American Hamilton Sundstrand, crew seats by the British Ipeco, and the aircraft doors by Boeing.
3 "Sukhoi Superjet 100 was built as an international project, created as an international aircraft. At that time, there were no sanctions against Russia. On the contrary, there was a different message: Russia was actively entering the world. Superjet was one of the projects that was supposed to demonstrate to the world that Russia was a very progressive and technologically advanced country," noted aviation columnist Anastasia Dagaeva.
All aircraft in the world – Boeing, Airbus, or Chinese models – are produced in international cooperation.
"At the time when the Sukhoi Superjet 100 was being created, it was a normal practice. Essentially, it remains so today. The only question is the ratio in this cooperation: somewhere more, somewhere less. The Superjet was created in different political realities," stated Dagaeva.
Long repairs and loss of foreign clients
Production delays began to arise almost immediately. The Russian aviation giant "Aeroflot," which was supposed to be the main buyer of the aircraft, was dissatisfied that the characteristics of the delivered SSJ-100 differed from those specified in the contract.
The Superjet turned out to be 3.5 tons heavier and consumed 11% more fuel than stated. The losses for the carrier under these conditions were estimated at 150 million dollars over 10 years.
4 In May 2012, during demonstration flights in Indonesia, the first aircraft was lost: the SSJ-100 crashed into a mountain. According to the official version, the disaster occurred due to the fault of air traffic controllers and pilot error – all 45 people on board perished.
The prolonged development of the project, as well as the disaster in Indonesia, initially did not significantly affect the choice of airlines: by mid-2012, various international carriers had ordered 244 "Superjets," and "Aeroflot" and Armenian "Armavia" began their operation.
5 However, it soon became clear that this ostensible "internationality" of the Superjet was hindering. The engine was not in serial production, being created exclusively for the aircraft. This made the Superjet critically dependent on international suppliers: if any component failed, its replacement or repair took a very long time.
In spring 2018, Brussels Airlines acknowledged that it had to cancel 92 flights within 22 days due to breakdowns. The Belgians expressed outragethat "this cannot continue," but the Russians never established a service system.
Due to long repairs, the Superjet began to lag behind foreign competitors in a very important indicator – average flight hours. In 2018, "Aeroflot" reportedthat on average, "Sukhoi" liners flew only 3.3 hours a day. In comparison, older Embraers in Russia then flew for 5-6 hours a day.
Problems with downtime remained unresolved, prompting foreign airlines to start rejecting the operation of "Sukhoi" or returning them. The Mexican InterJet, which purchased 22 aircraft, was forced to dismantle several of them for spare parts to ensure that at least some remained operational. "Sukhoi" then paid a compensation of 40 million dollars.
Subsequently, the entire Mexican fleet of SSJ-100 was grounded. However, the company initially did not completely abandon the "Sukhoi" aircraft, hoping that Russia would eventually repair them. Later, InterJet did part ways with these aircraft due to maintenance and engine issues.
6 At the beginning of 2019, Irish CityJet – the only one using the superjet in Europe – also ceased operations.
However, the Kremlin did not stop supporting the unprofitable project: "Aeroflot," despite complicated relations with the manufacturer, continued to place new orders, and VTB Bank provided funding for their production.
"Did not suffer from childhood diseases"
The aircraft's weak point turned out to be the small engine life, which almost guaranteed their failure after a few years of operation. The manufacturer claimedthat the culprit was the French company Safran, which, together with the Russian "ODK-Saturn," produced the engines for the aircraft.
"Sukhoi" is a decent aircraft that never overcame its childhood diseases. Something is always