Rostec finally finds a buyer for its unwanted fleet of Sukhoi Superjet 100s: Russian taxpayers

After years of failing to find new buyers on the open market, the Russian state corporation Rostec plans to supply Red Wings Airlines with as many as 60 “Sukhoi Superjet 100” aircraft over the next several years, three sources told the newspaper Vedomosti. 

Since 2016, Red Wings Airlines has belonged to the United Aircraft Corporation, which is in turn a Rostec subsidiary. A state leasing company will reportedly use federal subsidies to purchase the SSJ100s. According to Vedomosti, the new planes will be $33 million each — roughly what they cost before the coronavirus pandemic plunged the aviation industry into chaos.

The SSJ100 is post-Soviet Russia's first civilian aircraft developed from the ground up. Over the past nine years, United Aircraft Corporation has managed to sell 173 of these jets and has the capacity to maintain its pace of production, except demand for all aircraft has plummeted due to the global coronavirus pandemic. Even before the health crisis, however, SSJ100 sales slowed because of a shortage of spare parts that caused long delays in necessary repairs.