Nearly 20% of Russian airline fleets grounded this summer — double the normal rate
One in five aircraft operated by Russia’s 11 largest airlines is grounded this summer, the Russian business daily Kommersant calculated. Of the 673 aircraft that together account for more than 90% of the country’s passenger traffic, 130 are not flying — 19.3% of the total fleet.
The Aeroflot group, which operates 349 aircraft, has 37 grounded — roughly 10%, a rate experts consider normal. The picture is sharply worse at the other carriers: among the remaining airlines combined, nearly a third of the fleet is out of service, 93 of 322 aircraft.
S7, Russia’s largest private carrier, has the most grounded planes — 33 of its 104 aircraft, mostly sidelined by engine problems. At the other end, Pobeda’s entire fleet of 42 Boeing 737s is flying this summer.
Prolonged maintenance is the main cause of the groundings, Kommersant reported. Experts polled by the newspaper said that a third of the fleet being grounded at the largest airlines is “not a bad result” for an industry that has been under sanctions for nearly five years — though the situation could worsen as aircraft age and their service lives run out.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.