Aeroflot will only be able to replace the foreign-made engines on its Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft with Russian ones if the state provides support, the airline’s CEO, Sergei Alexandrovsky, said.
Without a government subsidy, he said, some of the planes will have to be taken out of service: “If there is no subsidy for re-engining, the fleet at all companies operating the SSJ 100 will gradually be reduced.”
After sanctions hit Russia’s aviation industry in 2022, the Superjets effectively had to be rebuilt, with the Russian-French SaM-146 engines swapped out for domestically made PD-8 engines.
The Russian newspaper Kommersant estimated the cost of the replacement at 2.1–2.3 billion rubles per aircraft. Industry sources cited by the newspaper also doubted that the United Engine Corporation could produce enough PD-8 engines.
Vadim Badekha, head of the United Aircraft Corporation, said earlier in 2026 that airlines would pay for the engine replacements themselves, with no budget funds planned for the effort.
About 160 SSJ 100 aircraft are currently in operation in Russia. Most of them — 78 aircraft — belong to the airline Rossiya, a subsidiary of the Aeroflot Group.
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 [email protected].
To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.