Around 180 aircraft have been registered in the Russian state register of civil aircraft since the end of February. These include aircraft of Aeroflot, Pobeda, UTair, Rossiya and Izhavia airlines, Head of the Aircraft Airworthiness Department at the Federal Air Transport Agency Valery Kudinov said on Thursday.
“Currently, there are 176 aircraft in the Russian register, including 21 UTair aircraft, 38 Rossiya aircraft, two Izhavia aircraft, 27 Pobeda aircraft and 80 Aeroflot aircraft,” Kudinov said.
Aeroflot’s newest Airbus A350 aircraft have also been transferred to the Russian register, he added.
Kudinov added that there were around 70 aircraft in the Russian register before the end of February. According to Kudinov, the situation with the maintenance of aircraft and imports of spare parts is planned to be resolved, including through the re-export of components.
“As far as I know, …, China refused (to import components to Russia – TASS note),” he said, adding that the search would continue through other countries, possibly through Turkey or India. “Each company will negotiate on its own,” Kudinov added.
Source: Russian Aviation
Note: Most Russian aircraft flying internationally are on the Bermuda register (VP or VQ). Transferring an aircraft on the Russian registers makes its value drop and makes it also more difficult for leasing companies to repossess the plane.
Update: The Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority [BCAA] has “provisionally suspended all Certificates of Airworthiness” of the aircraft operating under the “agreement between Bermuda and the Russian Federation.” Many Russian airlines indeed are registering their aircraft in the Bermuda Registry (VP-B** and VQ-B**) in order to have them accepted on airports worldwide. (read more)