Why do we fly on old foreign planes, and not on new domestic ones. RBC study: what Russia flies. There is no one to build new Russian airliners

The catastrophe in the skies over the Sinai Peninsula again brought to the fore the question posed in the subtitle. However, such questions, which are not easy to find a direct and honest answer, you can ask a lot.

Why, say, the average age of the American fleet is 10 years, the European one is 13, and the Russian one is all 20? Why do our airlines, instead of a new domestic Tu-204, buy pretty shabby Boeing 737 or Airbus A321 for the same money? Finally, why does the government not only not protect the domestic aviation industry, but also contribute to its final death? Since officials and bodies do not answer these questions directly and honestly, we will try to figure it out on our own.

Today, three-quarters of domestic air travel in Russia is carried out by aircraft made abroad. But some quarter of a century ago, the share of Soviet-made airliners was a fourth of the entire world fleet. So why don't our aircraft manufacturers regain their former glory, and why don't domestic air carriers support them with orders? But because it is unprofitable for carriers. Solve the problem: the Russian Tu-204 costs 40 million dollars, and its counterparts: Boeing 737 and Airbus A321 - 85 and 110 million, respectively. Which aircraft will the economical domestic air carrier choose? The answer seems obvious, but this answer is wrong. Not so long ago, a certain Russian airline agreed to supply 40 Boeing 737 aircraft - it was reported that the contract value was $ 3.3 billion. Yes, only with “live money”, more precisely, with a lump-sum deposit, the airline paid only a 10th part of the required amount. The remaining expenses were covered by a group of American banks. Thus, no one bought the planes - they were simply taken on a long-term lease.

You will probably ask: why didn't the carrier make a similar deal with Russian aircraft manufacturers? Yes, because our aircraft manufacturers do not have their own banking lobby. So it turns out that replenishing the fleet with expensive imported aircraft is more profitable for our air carriers than with cheap domestic ones.

There is no one to build new Russian airliners

Well, yes, the joke is with them, with Russian banks, which don’t care a damn domestic aviation industry. Unlike the authorities, they are guided by momentary profit. But what about the government? What is on our agenda today, import substitution? What will we replace Boeing with? There is, say, a new Tu-334 - it was assumed that this liner would replace the obsolete Tu-134 and Yak-42. The designers did their best: the plane can land on any Russian airfields, even unpaved ones. And even without running engines, the designers checked. In addition, the new "carcass" almost entirely consists of domestic components. Only 3% of aircraft parts are imported. And even with the traditional problem of domestic airliners - excessive noise - the designers managed to cope: the aircraft meets all European standards. Well, where are they, these same Tu-334s?

There is no one to build them. 2 million people were employed in the Soviet aircraft industry. And now - 100 thousand at most. A quarter of a century ago, 40,000 people worked at the Ulyanovsk Aviation Plant. Today - about 8 thousand. Almost the same number - at the aircraft factories in Voronezh and Kazan. There is a problem with personnel, says Vladimir Kondratyev, head of the Center for Industrial and Investment Research at IMEMO RAS. Professionals are aging, the average age of specialists in the design sector is approaching the critical age of 60 years. The Voronezh and Ulyanovsk aircraft plants need to almost double the number of personnel, but where can they find specialists? Yes, the dashing 90s are a thing of the past, aircraft manufacturers were given the opportunity to restructure their debts to the budget and stabilize their financial situation, explains Vladimir Kondratyev. And today the main problem of the domestic aviation industry is not even in the absence of orders, but in the catastrophic lack of specialists to carry out production programs. “Air carriers explain their desire to buy Western-made equipment by the fact that Russian aircraft manufacturers have insufficient production volumes,” the expert explains, “and small production volumes, in turn, are the result of state underfunding of enterprises. It's a vicious circle."

Ten years ago, it was decided to gather all domestic aircraft manufacturers into the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC). Both military and civilian. It is clear that the financing of military projects is our priority and the funds allocated by the state for development were thus distributed primarily between Sukhoi and Irkut, while the rest were content with the leftovers. There was no question of any even distribution of money allocated for development. By the way, the Tu-334 project has become a hostage to the uneven balance of power in the KLA: it seems to have been deliberately "muted" while developing the Sukhoi Superjet 100 project.

Russia chooses "new" Boeing, created 40 years ago

Thus, there are two unsolvable problems. First, it is unprofitable for Russian airlines to buy Russian aircraft. The second is that Russian aircraft manufacturers do not have the opportunity to build enough aircraft. But there is a third problem - the chronic lack of funds for carriers to purchase new cars. Just now, State Duma deputy Alexei Pushkov proposed to ban the operation of aircraft older than 15 years. Yes, but that is hardly possible. Take, for example, UTair, the third company in Russia in terms of passenger traffic and passenger turnover (and now, after the Ministry of Transport has canceled the certificate for Transaero air transportation, it is already the second). About 9 million people use the services of this carrier annually. Two years ago, the average age of UTair's fleet exceeded 20 years. And it is unlikely that today these indicators have fundamentally changed. The government does not provide state subsidies for the purchase of new aircraft, and the cost of leasing abroad grows in inverse proportion to how the ruble falls. If the State Duma performs a miracle by banning the operation of obsolete airliners, the same UTair will be forced to cancel at least a third of its flights. And UTair is, so to speak, the cream of our passenger air fleet. Almost the best among 24 main Russian carriers. Judge for yourself: the average age of VIM-Avia aircraft is 21 years, Nord-Avia is 22 years, Grozny Avia is

24 years, Saratov Airlines - 26 years, Izhavia and Alrosa - 30 years. But in addition to the main airlines, there are also regional and local ones. Guess for yourself what is the average age of aircraft in the same "Angara" or "IrAero". I'll tell you: for the "thirty".

Six years ago, Minister of Industry and Trade Viktor Khristenko took the Il-96-300 out of production by a strong-willed decision - supposedly the liner was not able to compete with Boeing and Airbus. At the same time, the government abolished the 20% duty on foreign long-haul aircraft. It was probably expected that now the fleets of Russian carriers will be significantly updated. But this did not happen: as before, tight-fisted carriers preferred to lease outdated equipment, often just rubbish that was not killed in third world countries. The government, thus, as they say, did not work well. “If the government had supported the production of the Tu-334 and An-148 in time, the Russian domestic air transportation market would not today be filled by three-quarters with foreign aircraft, mostly worn out,” Vladimir Kondratiev is convinced. “Just think: our country today flies on the Boeing 737, created 40 years ago!” By the way, only one imported system was installed on the IL-96-300 - inertial navigation. Everything else, from the tail to the instruments in the cockpit, was ours, domestic.

On this topic

The state is not interested in the development of civil aircraft industry

About the state of the park civil aviation we usually remember after another disaster happens. Here are just the conclusions "above" sometimes make such that it's time to ask: is a high expert adequate? I remember that after the Lokomotiv hockey team died in the Yak-42 crash near Yaroslavl, Dmitry Medvedev generally agreed to the point that he proposed to curtail the entire civil aviation industry and buy passenger liners abroad. “The value of human life is higher than all other considerations, including support for a national producer,” Medvedev said. - If our (manufacturers. - Ed.) are not able to get promoted, we need to buy aircraft Abroad". And how can you get promoted here if the state allocates about 3 billion dollars a year for all new developments of aviation engineers, including the military? For example, for the development of one Boeing 787 project - the Dreamliner, the corporation slammed $ 32 billion. And our designers are forced to cut several hats from one sheepskin at once.

By the way, the vast majority of experts note that the idea of merging both civil and military aviation into one corporation was fundamentally wrong and that today civil aircraft industry is in deep stagnation - a consequence of an unsuccessful management decision. For 10 years of work of the UAC, engineers curtailed the Il-92-300 and Tu-334 projects and never brought the Tu-204 project to mind (today this aircraft is already obsolete, but its life tests have not yet been completed - otherwise than a mess, reigning in civil aircraft construction, this can hardly be explained). “Maintenance procedures on the Tu-204 have not yet been worked out, and this aircraft is already over 20 years old,” complains Ivan Andrievsky, First Vice President of the Russian Union of Engineers. – As a result, aircraft maintenance takes much more time than maintenance of a similar foreign-made airliner, sometimes repairs can take several months. And Tu-204s, therefore, are more often idle than they fly, and carriers lose money.” Bad plane Tu-204? Good, just unfinished. As the engineers say, "raw." Was it difficult to improve? Yes Easy! Only money was short.

Why are military corporations building civilian liners?

The outstanding Soviet aircraft designer Genrikh Novozhilov, a legendary man, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, told a story that reflects the state of affairs in the domestic civil aircraft industry in a mirror. President Vladimir Putin arrived at the plant in Samara, where the An-140 is being built. The managers complained to him: they say, because of the events in Ukraine, the local subcontractor, Antonov, unilaterally broke all agreements and it would be wiser in the current situation to switch to the production of IL-114. But there is no money, but 5-6 billion rubles are needed. Putin replied: for such an aircraft, this is not the price of the issue, work, the money will be. And then the process stalled. Perhaps due to the fact that the plant in Samara is run by private business and it seemed unproductive to support it with budgetary funds. They decided to build the Il-114 in Kazan, they say, there is already a plant where the Tu-160 is being built.

“And now more than a year has passed,” the designer complains, “and there is no decision on the Il-114, just as there was none.”

Why is that? Yes, because for the UAC the civil aircraft industry is the same ballast as in Soviet times for military factories the production of toys. Our military aircraft sell well in the world, the corporation earns billions on them, but there is no question of using at least part of these funds for the development of civil aircraft construction. By the way, today in Russia, in fact, only two projects for the construction of passenger liners are financed - Superjet and MS-21. Both projects are being carried out by the military corporations Sukhoi and Irkut. And specialized civil aircraft manufacturers with vast experience and names that have not yet been forgotten - the same design bureaus of Tupolev, Yakovlev or Ilyushin - remain in the wings, dragging out, if not frankly miserable, then clearly unenviable existence. “Today, the Russian aircraft industry is subject to the formula “money - goods - money”, while the goods are not Russian, but foreign, and the money remains only partially in Russia,” Genrikh Novozhilov states. “The domestic civil aviation industry in its own state has turned out to be a stepdaughter and is forced to get out by all means in order to survive.”

Maxim Kalashnikov, writer, publicist:

- Nothing changes in the Russian aviation industry. We continue to systematically destroy our civil aviation industry, buying foreign rubbish in the secondary market, subsidies for civil aviation for fuel, which, by the way, have been promised for a long time, just as they never were. Carriers save on everything, dooming passengers to pay for all their petty tricks with their lives. Flight safety is generally pushed into ... (unprintable word. - Ed.). I see the only way out of the impasse - a return to the Soviet model. We must build our own aircraft, revive the state order and state support for the industry. Perhaps carriers should be forced to focus on domestic equipment. There are ways to change the situation radically, the main thing is to want to resort to them.

Igor Korotchenko, military expert:

- The catastrophe in the sky over the Sinai Peninsula - regardless of the reason for the fall of the Russian Airbus - gives rise to a number of uncomfortable questions for domestic carriers. How could it be that a plane that made not so long ago emergency landing with a deformation of the tail, easily allowed to fly? After all, it is known that fatigue deformations can appear even after a few years. How did it happen that this plane received a flight certificate? Until now, the presence of such a certificate served as a guarantee of the quality of transportation. My opinion: everything needs to be checked carefully and to establish why the “broken” board received a flight certificate and why the carrier treated the safety of passengers in an inappropriate way.

Most of the aircraft flying in Russia are no older than their analogues used abroad. However, 17.7% of the aircraft fleet are old aircraft, many of which have exhausted their resources and have problems with parts. Another disadvantage of the domestic market is problems with service and supervision, which is why almost the entire Russian fleet is registered in third countries

Photo: Transport-Photo Images

It became biggest disaster in history Russian aviation. The day after the tragedy of the Kogalymavia (Metrojet) Airbus 321, which killed 224 people, the Russian investigation opened two criminal cases under the articles “providing services that do not meet safety requirements” and “violating flight safety rules or training for them” . The searches took place at the carrier's office, Domodedovo, Samara airport, where the aircraft was refueled. State Duma deputies immediately called for a ban on the operation of aircraft older than 15 years (Airbus Kogalymavia was 18 years old) and the deprivation of the license of carrier companies with a small number of aircraft. The head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, Alexei Pushkov, said that it leads to plane crashes. Deputies put forward similar initiatives after the crash of a 23-year-old Boeing 737 in Kazan on October 17, 2013. Then, as now, the public ignored statements by airlines and industry experts who argued that an aircraft is not a machine and 20 years of operation is not such a long time for it.

Both aircraft - Boeing in Kazan and Airbus over Sinai - were operational according to the latest data. The Kazan disaster, as the commission of inquiry decided, the Egyptian one, was recognized as a terrorist attack three weeks later. Suspicions of the poor condition of aircraft flying in Russia, however, have not evaporated. RBC analyzed the fleet of Russian companies operating regular and charter passenger flights and found out how justified the suspicions of wear and tear.

How we thought

The list of valid airworthiness certificates of the Federal Air Transport Agency as of October 22, 2015 (that is, aircraft that are allowed to fly in Russia), data from the official websites of carriers and Internet resources airfleets.com, russianplanes.net and flightradar24.com was taken as a basis. We have excluded from the list small aircraft(private jets), aircraft local airlines(practical range less than 1000 km, mainly An-2), helicopters, business jets, as well as all aircraft not used for passenger transportation - for example, cargo and agricultural. The sample also did not include aircraft that are not used to transport passengers for commercial purposes: for example, the air fleet of the Air Force, the Ministry of Emergencies and the special squad for the transportation of top officials (SLO Rossiya), as well as aircraft owned by aircraft manufacturing plants. The lists we received from detailed information about each aircraft were sent to all operating airlines with a request to confirm the correctness of the data we collected. All responses were included in the analysis results.

Our statistics also included aircraft of the second largest Russian airline, Transaero. was adopted on October 1, and on October 26, the company lost its air operator certificate and ceased operations. The Transaero fleet is in the process of being returned to lessors: Aeroflot, which got part of the airline's routes, may receive several dozen cars, the rest will be sold on the market or written off. Taking into account the entire fleet of Transaero in the sample (according to open data as of October, this is 122 aircraft), we were guided by the fact that most of it can be transferred to other Russian operators, and the composition of the fleet reflects the economic model of the largest private Russian carrier.

What will happen to the huge fleet of Transaero, the second carrier after Aeroflot in terms of the number of aircraft (one of them is in the photo), is still unclear (Photo: TASS)

Which models are chosen

The most popular family in Russia is the medium-haul Airbus 320 (A320, A319 and A321): 249 such aircraft are allowed to fly in the country. In second place with 203 sides is the medium-haul Boeing 737 family, whose flights were recently asked to be suspended by the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC).

According to our data, there are only 130 long-haul aircraft in Russia, of which 76.6% are Boeing 747, 767 and 777 models.

There is no definition of a medium-haul aircraft in Russian legislation. In the world, it is customary to include vehicles with a flight range of more than 2.5 thousand km into this category. Long-haul vehicles in Russia are those with a flight range of more than 8,000 km.

Not so long ago, Airbus became the leader among aircraft flying on medium-haul routes in Russia. The Big Four companies — Aeroflot, S7, UTair, Transaero — split their preferences in 2013, explains Andrey Kramarenko, a researcher at the Institute of Transport Economics and Transport Policy at the Higher School of Economics. The first two chose Airbus, the second - Boeing. Now Transaero has stopped flights, and UTair has significantly reduced its fleet.

Two competing aircraft manufacturers provide most of the world's aircraft fleets. According to the data of the international organization Center for Aviation (CAPA, Australia) for April 2013, 39.7% of all ships operated in the world are Boeing aircraft and 28.7% - Airbus. Russia is no exception. Aircraft of the two companies occupy 61.7% Russian park 14.3% - other foreign aircraft (Embraer, Bombardier, De Havilland Canada, Let, ATR).

Domestic aircraft account for only 24% of the total fleet of Russian carriers. Moreover, on modern samples - An-148, Tu-204, Tu-214 and Sukhoi Superjet- only 6.3%. The remaining 17.7% are old modifications of the An, Tu and Yak, most of which flew back in the USSR. “But in the volume of passenger traffic, the share of these vehicles is less than 5%,” adds Alexander Fridlyand, professor at the Moscow State Technical University of Civil Aviation.

Sukhoi Superjet is the leader in terms of number among modern Russian models: domestic airlines have 39 such boards. RBC),” says Fridland. According to him, for local and regional routes it is large, and on main routes with good passenger traffic it is inferior to economical cars with 150-200 seats. “His niche is the main, but weak in terms of flows directions,” the interlocutor believes.

An-24 has not been produced since 1979, but there are 67 more such aircraft in the fleet of Russian companies (Photo: Transport-Photo Images)

From Soviet aircraft most of all in the fleet of An-24 airlines - 67 aircraft. A turboprop passenger aircraft for short and medium haul lines was developed by the Antonov Design Bureau (KB) in the late 1950s. Maximum capacity- up to 52 passengers. Operated mainly by Russian regional companies(RBC considers those who do not make long-haul flights, flights through the capital's air hub and are not based in Moscow and St. Petersburg). “An-24 is the only aircraft in the world of this class that lands on the ground, on packed snow or on ice,” reminds Oleg Smirnov, Honored Pilot of the USSR, President of the Air Transport Infrastructure Development Fund. - He flew throughout the airspace of the USSR and in the current conditions on Far North practically irreplaceable."

Now the An-24 continues to be used by companies based in the north: Polar Airlines, Yakutia, Chukotavia. So far, it is impossible to replace it en masse with foreign models. Firstly, in aircraft of foreign brands that could land at the airfields of these regions, fewer passengers explains Kramarenko. In addition, the technical documentation for them is on English language, which is not owned by all pilots and personnel of the An-24. However, during 2012-2013, Yakutia leased five Bombardier Dash 8 aircraft with a capacity of 70 to 80 seats. In addition to Bombardier, Canadian De Havilland Canada 6 Twin Otters fly in the Aeroflot subsidiary of the Far Eastern airline Aurora. Most likely, in the coming years, all An-24s will be replaced by foreign aircraft, “because they run out of their resources and it will become extremely difficult and expensive to maintain their airworthiness,” predicts a partner at the consulting company Concuros, a former vice president. civil aircraft Sukhoi" Dmitry Mirgorodsky. There are no replacements for their domestic counterparts.

The second most popular among Soviet aircraft is the Yak-42: there are 33 such aircraft in the fleet of Russian airlines. However, several of them are in storage: some are waiting for the replacement of parts, some will no longer rise into the air. Cars are included in the parks of Gazpromavia, Grozny Avia, Izhavia, Saratov Airlines. The last company started flying Brazilian Embraer 190s two years ago.

How old are airplanes in Russia

As the study showed, on average in Russia, the age of foreign models is less than their resource, while our aircraft are often older. According to Andrey Sharypov, head of the department for certification of civil aviation ships of the State Research Institute of Civil Aviation, for foreign aircraft it is about 40-60 thousand hours, that is, 30 years. For the Soviets it was less - about 20 years. The manufacturer can extend the resource individually for each vessel.

For example, the average age of the Boeing 737 Classic generation (modifications 300, 400, 500) in Russia is 20.2 years. Generations Boeing 737 Next Generation (modifications 600, 700, 800, 900) - 9.1 years. Airbus modifications 320 - 7.5 years, A319 - 11.9 years (see infographic). These figures are not much different from the global average. The Dutch airline KLM, according to planespotters.net, Boeing New Generation on average fly at the age of 9.3 years. The American low-cost airline Southwest Airlines, according to USA Today and airfleets.net, is 9.7 years old. Boeing 737 Classic cars (modifications 300, 400 and 500) of this airline are on average over 22 years old.

As for Airbus, the A320 fleet of the German Germanwings is 23 years old. The American Delta, which flies with Aeroflot in the Skyteam alliance, has 20.7 years. Delta's A319 aircraft are 13.8 years old.

The oldest model of aircraft flying in Russia is the An-24. On average, they are 42.1 years old. The average age of another Soviet Yak-42 aircraft still in operation is 24.7 years.

Soviet aircraft and modern Russian ones (with the exception of the Sukhoi Superjet), unlike foreign ones, have problems with details. Mass production of such machines has been stopped, so you have to order components by the piece, which costs many times more, says Sergey Koval, deputy head of the department for monitoring and verifying the authenticity of the Civil Aviation Research Institute. As a result, parts with forged documents are sometimes put on Soviet cars. According to Koval, up to 8% of illegal parts are now on the market, and from 2001 to 2015, 50 serious incidents occurred due to problems with parts (incidents with planes and helicopters are taken into account).

What happened to the Soviet design bureaus

The Saratov Aviation Plant, which produced the Yak aircraft, is bankrupt and completely liquidated. Design bureaus The companies that developed the Soviet aircraft — Tupolev Design Bureau and Yakovlev Design Bureau (now part of the United Aircraft Corporation) — continue to exist mainly by escorting the remaining ships in service, Koval says. Antonov Design Bureau (now the Antonov State Enterprise) is located in Ukraine.

The age of the aircraft, according to professionals, does not affect its technical condition and airworthiness. “As a commander of a ship, I don’t ask: will you give me an old plane or will I fly on a new one, this doesn’t interest me at all,” Smirnov explains. The main thing is whether the aircraft underwent maintenance and repairs on time throughout its life. In addition, every detail of the aircraft has its own resources. By the time, Smirnov says, "the plane is 17 years old, these parts can be replaced several times."

The study showed that 58.7% of the aircraft in the Russian fleet had only one or two operators. And more than ten air carriers that have replaced each other - in the luggage only 3% of the boards. And in many cases, two of the same companies used the aircraft in turn. So, for example, the Izhavia aircraft had a Yak-42: according to airfleets.net, if you take into account the alternation of the same carriers, it changed 20 operators in 28 and a half years. According to Smirnov, professionals are distrustful of an aircraft that previously flew "in countries with high humidity, such as Africa." However, both the lessor and the owner are obliged to put such a car in order. In this regard, for technical condition aircraft, its lessor is important, and not the previous operator, the expert believes.

As a rule, carriers refuse aircraft for economic reasons, and not because of the end of its resource, according to a study by the leasing company Avalon (offices in the US, Ireland, Dubai, Singapore and China). In Russia, foreign and new domestic aircraft models cease to be used at the age of 20-23, says HSE researcher Kramarenko. Global figures, according to Avalon research, are similar.

Airline age preferences

Russian airlines with the oldest fleet use Soviet aircraft. Among carriers with ten or more sides, the oldest fleet - 41.2 years - belongs to the Turukhan company, which is part of the UTair group. It mainly operates charter flights, including for mining companies. But Turukhan also has regular flights, so its aircraft were included in our study.

In total, there are 16 companies in Russia that operate aircraft older than 25 years for regular and charter flights (see table).

The youngest park is at Pobeda, which has recently started working as a subsidiary of Aeroflot. Her sides are only a year old. Aeroflot, on the other hand, has an average fleet age, according to RBC calculations, of 4.6 years. The planes of Transaero, which stopped flying, were on average 18.6 years old (the S7 fleet - 9.2 years, and UTair - 14 years). In 2005-2008 many Russian airlines, including the Big Four carriers, when fuel prices went up, massively upgraded the fleet, preferring aircraft with lower fuel consumption. In particular, this explains the rather young fleet of foreign aircraft in Russia, Friedland notes.

On April 1, 2001, the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) came into force, establishing reduced engine noise levels for aircraft flying in Europe. Almost all Soviet and Russian aircraft of that time: Tu-134, Tu-154B, Tu-154M, Il-62, Il-86. Thus, airlines that actively flew to Europe and transited over European countries were forced to change their old noisy cars to new imported ones.

Low-cost airline Pobeda is the youngest Russian air carrier with the youngest park. Their Boeing is only a year on average (Photo: TASS)

There is also a significant difference between the average age of aircraft from different companies abroad. According to the Bloomberg rating, compiled in January 2013, the American Delta has an average age of 15.8 years, Southwest Airlines - 14.7, Aeromexico - 15.2, Lufthansa - 12.4, Air France - 11.5, Ryanair - five years.

Each company chooses for itself what is more cost-effective for it: a new or old aircraft, Mirgorodsky emphasizes. For example, buying new Boeing 737-800 will cost about $48-55 million. The same ten-year-old model will already cost $16-18 million, says Alexander Kochetkov, head of the Gold "nsky Leasing leasing company. But older aircraft also require maintenance costs. Not all companies can afford to pay such amounts at a time - you have to take cars on lease.In Russia, according to the company "Ilyushin Finance Co.", at least 80% of aircraft in operation are leased.

This is exactly what the largest market player, Aeroflot, is doing, which is going to enter the top 20 global air carriers in terms of revenue and passenger traffic by 2025. For the sake of this goal, the airline has been not only increasing, but also refreshing its fleet for several years now, General Director Vitaly Savelyev repeatedly said in his interviews. “It is difficult to compete on the world market on an old aircraft,” Mirgorodsky explains the strategy. Aeroflot also gives older models to its subsidiaries - the airlines Aurora, Orenburg Airlines, Donavia, Rossiya.

But many companies do not even have enough money to lease new aircraft. Transaero, for example, which dreamed of ousting a state competitor, due to expensive debt financing, as it itself admitted in its financial statements, built up its fleet with cheap foreign and old cars, Vedomosti wrote. After the devaluation of the ruble at the end of last year, leasing for Russian companies has risen in price even for old aircraft (leasing payments are made in foreign currency. — RBC), adds Mirgorodsky. According to Kochetkov's estimates, leasing a new Boeing 737-800 costs an average of $4.2 million per year, and about $2 million for a ten-year one.

To the 25th anniversary of the air groups

"Swifts" and "Russian Knights"

To fly like them, pilots study for years. Their work is beautiful, honorable and incredibly difficult. Any athlete will envy their health and endurance. They have fan clubs not only in Russia, but also abroad, their schedule of performances is drawn up a year in advance. Almost no international air show takes place without them.

Each flight of the Swifts and Russian Knights, which celebrate their 25th anniversary this year, is the embodiment of a dream, overcoming the imperfections of human nature. The inspiration and joy that planes give people, easily soaring into the sky.

About the secrets of the mastery of Russian aces, their new aircraft, the history of air groups, the present and future - in the TASS material.

THE BIRTH OF A LEGEND

"Knights" and "Swifts" appeared almost simultaneously - on April 5 and May 6, 1991. The names of both groups were invented by the pilots themselves. Both those and others are based on Kubinka as part of the Display Center aviation technology named after I. N. Kozhedub.

Interesting fact

The first private display of the forerunner of the Strizhi aerobatic team on the MiG-29 took place back in 1986 in Finland, where the group was invited on a friendly visit.

"Swifts" fly the MiG-29. These aircraft arrived in Kubinka in 1983, before that the MiG-21 and MiG-23 were at the disposal of the pilots of the aviation center. At that time, pilots on four MiGs were not called an aerobatic team, the name "diamond on the MiG-29" was used. In 1991, a new era began.

"Swifts" were formed from the best pilots on the basis of the 234th Guards Proskurov Fighter Aviation Regiment, which was always called "ostentatious" among the troops. Its tasks included not only protecting the air borders of Moscow, but also demonstrating the capabilities of advanced aviation technology.

The current coloring of the Swifts was proposed by the Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG in 2000. So the outlines of giant blue birds appeared above and below on the fuselage of aircraft.

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Interesting fact

In August 1993, the Vityaz was invited to the Canadian air base Abbotsford, where their demonstration performances ended in a small curiosity: Canadian pilots argued with the Russians that the Su-27 as a fighter was inferior to their CF-18 Hornet aircraft. The dispute was resolved in front of two hundred thousand spectators - the "Knights" in a training battle defeated the "Hornets", proving the unsurpassed qualities of their combat vehicles.

"Russian Knights" is the only aviation group in the world that demonstrates aerobatics on heavy combatant Su-27 fighters. Their planes, like those of the Swifts, do not differ from combat vehicles in anything, except for the color.

The Su-27 entered service with the 1st Aviation Squadron of the Aviation Equipment Display Center in May 1989. At first, the pilots trained in pairs, threes, and then fours of cars in the diamond formation. At the beginning of 1991, the composition of the aerobatic team of six aircraft was finally formed.

The first performance of "Knights" took place four and a half months after the official birthday of the group, on August 24, 1991, at the first Polish air show in Poznan. Then the group commander Vladimir Bazhenov came up with a solo aerobatics program.

This visit was the starting point in creating a unique image of the group. It took less than a month for the specialists of the Sukhoi Design Bureau to develop a single design and paint all the group's fighters.

The Art of Combat

Simple, complex and aerobatics, admired by millions of spectators, has its own practical meaning. Each figure that the aircraft "writes out" in the sky is designed to evade the enemy.

The goal of the attacker is to take an advantageous starting position and hit the pursued aircraft, the goal of the one who is being overtaken is to get away from the attack, dodge the missile, and, if possible, go "into the tail" of the attacker. The pilot must feel calm in the air, be completely confident in his aircraft and master it perfectly.

It has practical meaning and working for the entertainment of aerobatics shooting false thermal targets, better known as heat traps - a sheaf of bright lights that planes release when flying in a group or alone. In a real battle, this "salute" is necessary in order to confuse the infrared homing heads of enemy missiles.

Sergey Osyaykin,
commander of the air group "Swifts"

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Pilot training, performing a complex of aerobatics, the ability to conduct maneuverable air combat are the basis of training for every fighter pilot

Sergey Osyaykin,
commander of the air group "Swifts"

"Let's take the "Barrel" figure as an example (turning the aircraft around the longitudinal axis by 360 degrees - approx. TASS). If it is single, then this is the basic figure performed by all pilots. If it is a group figure, then it is already difficult, only pilots do it" , - says the commander of the Russian Knights, military pilot 1st class Sergey Eremenko.
When the "Barrel" is made by an air group, the skill is manifested in the synchronous execution of this figure, simultaneously begun and completed, in the precise keeping of one's place in the ranks and the position of the aircraft in space.
A single "Barrel" in combat gives the pilot the opportunity to suddenly change his spatial position, to get away from the enemy missile.
For an air fight, a variation called "Kadushka" is more relevant, when the plane does not just rotate around its axis, but moves a little "smeared", while simultaneously moving in a circle.

Sergey Eremenko,


Almost all figures are performed on overloads. Perhaps the most difficult to complete is the "Bell" and the passage at a minimum speed (200 km / h). It is necessary to support the plane, not to let it collapse and not go into a tailspin

Sergey Eremenko,
commander of the "Russian Knights"

Aerobatics in the most general form are divided into single and group, while group ones are performed in various formations: "Pyramid", "Envelope", "Arrow", "Column".

© YouTube/TASS

Interesting fact

When performing aerobatics, all pilots look only at the leader's aircraft. They hold one plane, focusing only on him. It is the leader who creates the aerobatics pattern, is responsible for all the parameters of the figures performed, for the formation, and the task of the followers is to maintain their place in the ranks.

When an aircraft is piloted alone, the pilot demonstrates everything that the machine is capable of, shows its capabilities. When performing aerobatics, the group must be in formation, synchronism, and a certain construction of maneuvers.
Piloting should be energetic, concise, concentrated, the time intervals between different figures and rebuildings should be minimal.
This is how the picture of aerobatics is formed, a harmonious pattern and the meaning of flight are born, so that the active maneuvering of aircraft does not turn into "flickering", but reveals all the beauty, controllability and dangerous power of combat vehicles.

Sergey Osyaykin,
commander of the air group "Swifts"


If the pilot is distracted for at least half a second, then it is not a fact that at a speed of 600-700 km / h he will be able to maintain his place in the ranks. The task of the follower is to fully concentrate on the leader and perform his maneuvers behind him. Naturally, with the advent of experience, the pilot already has the opportunity to be distracted for a split second, to look somewhere, to control some additional parameters. But still, 90% of his time in group aerobatics, he looks at the leader

Sergey Osyaykin,
commander of the air group "Swifts"

BRILLIANT IN THE SKY

Interesting fact

The distance between the tips of the wings of aircraft in group aerobatics is 1 meter.

One of the most recognizable symbols of the Swifts and Russian Knights is a giant rhombus consisting of four MiG-29s and five Su-27s. This aerobatic formation was given the name "Cuban Diamond" for its clear edges, outlined as if by a ruler.
For the first time, the four Russian Knights, together with the six Swifts, flew in a single formation of ten aircraft on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the establishment of the Aviation Technology Display Center in March 2003.
In 2004, a joint flight was included in the screening complex aerobatic teams consisting of nine aircraft (five Su-27s and four MiG-29s) in a "rhombus" formation with a full range of aerobatics. This fact became a world record in the history of aviation.
For several years in a row, Swifts and Vityazi have been flying in nines over Red Square on May 9 and performing in this way at many holidays.

HOW AIR ACROBATS ARE PREPARED

Both "Swifts" and "Russian Knights" have been flying in an updated composition (six) since 2014. Each new pilot must undergo serious training in order to be eligible to fly in an air group.
"We are interested in having people come to us. These should be pilots with a qualifying flight time of at least a second-class pilot, who have almost fully completed a combat training course. In addition, personal, human qualities are important. An air group is a small family where everyone should be absolutely confident in your comrades,” says Osyaykin.

Sergey Osyaykin,
commander of the air group "Swifts"


In addition, young pilots come to our aviation center, from which we train air fighters. We fly with them both for air battles, and for interceptions, and for combat use for various purposes. And only then we look closely at them and try for aerobatics. All this goes in parallel

Sergey Osyaykin,
commander of the air group "Swifts"

Pilots do not get tired of emphasizing that they fly on front-line serial machines. Both "Swifts" and "Knights" often sit at the controls of aircraft in other air units and "twist" exactly the same program. This is done in those cases when it is more expensive to "drive" aircraft and an engineering group from Kubinka.
“Of course, there is no global difference between the aircraft, but, of course, there will always be “microscopic” nuances. On one aircraft, the engines work a little differently, you land in another - both reach power in the same way. And, of course, the pilot who flew for the steering wheel of a single machine, everything will tell about the tiny differences in its management,” says Eremenko.
Any flight is always a certain risk. The program of each performance is always thoroughly calculated taking into account the distances back and forth, the time and complexity of piloting, the amount of fuel filled, terrain features, and the availability of alternate airfields.

© Video provided by the Voeninform Agency of the Russian Ministry of Defense

LIFE ON OVERLOAD

During solo aerobatics, the overload can reach up to 9 g (units), which means that a person is pressed by gravity nine times his own weight. Group aerobatics usually does not exceed 6 g-forces. According to Eremenko, at the same time, even with an overload of three units, it is already difficult to take your hand off your knee.
“With such discomfort, the pilots must maintain their place in the ranks, think with lightning speed and respond to various deviations, listen to the leader’s commands,” says the Vityaz flight commander.
Of course, pilots are saved from overload by special suits that do not allow blood to drain from the head and torso, but this does not change the essence - every fighter pilot must be unconditionally healthy physically and mentally, with an excellent vestibular apparatus. The strictest selection for health is precisely in aviation, especially in fighter aircraft.

Sergey Eremenko,
commander of the "Russian Knights"


A pilot is an ordinary person, just the requirements for him are more stringent. When you just start flying aerobatics, the effect of overload is unusual. It takes time to get comfortable. But then everything becomes a habit.

Sergey Eremenko,
commander of the "Russian Knights"

According to the commander of the Swifts, when taking off in an airplane, especially when performing aerobatics, a person must have a certain reserve of strength so that he does not become ill, so that he does not lose consciousness and maintain maximum concentration.
Every year, fighter pilots undergo a medical examination after vacation, a quarterly medical examination, semi-annual in-depth examinations, and every year - a medical flight commission (VLK). Moreover, it can be both inpatient and outpatient.
If the pilot does not have any serious diagnoses, then he undergoes it on an outpatient basis once every three years. If the doctors have any questions, then every year a person goes to the hospital and is examined for three weeks. Every year a medical certificate is given - the right to fly until the next VLK.

WINGS OF ASOV

In 2016, "Russian Knights" will gradually switch to new type aircraft - multipurpose fighters Su-30SM (serial, modernized). Its design uses front horizontal tail and engines with thrust vector control, which gives the car super-maneuverability. That is, the ability of aircraft to maintain controllability at very high angles of attack with high overloads and change position relative to the air flow. This ensures the safety of maneuvering in combat.

Viktor Bondarev,
Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces,

Viktor Bondarev,
Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces,
Hero of Russia, Colonel General

The coloring of the new aircraft will be the same as the current ones, and the demonstration program will undoubtedly be updated.
Comparing the Su-30SM with the Su-27, the Russian Knights flight commander notes that "to some extent, it is a little more difficult for group aerobatics."
"But in solo aerobatics there will be much more possibilities, it will be much more colorful and varied. There you can perform such figures, which have not yet been named," Eremenko sums up.

Su-30SM (according to NATO classification–Flanker-H)

The first flight was made in 1989. The Su-30 is a two-seat ("spark") multipurpose heavy fighter of the "4+" generation, created on the basis of the Su-27UB through its deep modernization. Has supermaneuverability.
It is designed both to gain air supremacy and to strike at ground and surface targets. The design of the aircraft used front horizontal tail and engines with thrust vector control.
The fighter's ammunition portfolio includes a wide range of weapons, including air-to-air missiles and air-to-surface precision guided weapons. The Su-30SM can be used as an aircraft to train pilots for advanced single-seat fighters. Since 2012, these aircraft have been under construction for the Russian Aerospace Forces.

Su-27 (according to NATO codification–Flanker-B)

Designed to gain air supremacy. The first flight of the prototype took place in 1977.
The first Su-27 entered the Armed Forces Soviet Union in 1984. State joint tests of the aircraft were completed in 1985.
The basic Su-27 is equipped with a pair of AL-31F bypass turbojet engines with afterburners. The normal takeoff weight of this aircraft is 22.5 tons (whereas the MiG-29 is 15.3 tons).
The Su-27 can carry up to 6 medium-range air-to-air guided missiles and up to 4 R-73 short-range guided missiles with thermal homing heads.
The size and weight of the aircraft, its inertia and, oddly enough, its excellent aerodynamics are the main reasons that require a subtle approach to co-piloting and great skill of pilots.

Sergey Osyaykin,
commander of the air group "Swifts"

Information Agency " RosBusinessConsulting published a study Polina Nikolskaya, Anastasia Yakoreva, Petr Mironenko, Elena Myazina"What does Russia fly", dedicated to the state of the fleet of Russian airlines. Our blog provides the text of this publication.

Most of the aircraft flying in Russia are no older than their analogues used abroad. However, 17.7% of the fleet are old cars, many of which have exhausted their resources and have problems with parts. Another disadvantage of the domestic market is problems with service and supervision, which is why almost the entire Russian fleet is registered in third countries.

(c) RosBusinessConsulting

Airbus crash 321 October 30, 2015 was the largest disaster in the history of Russian aviation. The day after the tragedy of the Kogalymavia (Metrojet) Airbus 321, which killed 224 people, the Russian investigation opened two criminal cases under the articles “providing services that do not meet safety requirements” and “violating flight safety rules or training for them” . The searches took place at the carrier's office, Domodedovo, Samara airport, where the aircraft was refueled. State Duma deputies immediately called for a ban on the operation of aircraft older than 15 years (Airbus Kogalymavia was 18 years old) and the deprivation of the license of carrier companies with a small number of aircraft. The head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, Alexei Pushkov, said that the "market attitude" to the industry leads to plane crashes. Deputies put forward similar initiatives after the crash of a 23-year-old Boeing 737 in Kazan on October 17, 2013. Then, as now, the public ignored statements by airlines and industry experts who argued that an aircraft is not a machine and 20 years of operation is not such a long time for it.

Both aircraft - Boeing in Kazan and Airbus over Sinai - were operational according to the latest data. The Kazan disaster, as the commission of inquiry decided, was due to the human factor, while the Egyptian one was recognized as a terrorist attack three weeks later. Suspicions of the poor condition of aircraft flying in Russia, however, have not evaporated. RBC analyzed the fleet of Russian companies operating regular and charter passenger flights and found out how justified the suspicions of wear and tear.

How we thought

The list of valid airworthiness certificates of the Federal Air Transport Agency as of October 22, 2015 (that is, aircraft that are allowed to fly in Russia), data from the official websites of carriers and Internet resources airfleets.com, russianplanes.net and flightradar24.com was taken as a basis. We excluded from the complete list small aircraft (private jets), local airlines (operating range less than 1000 km, mainly An-2), helicopters, business jets, as well as all aircraft not used for passenger transportation - for example, cargo and agricultural. The sample also did not include aircraft that are not used to transport passengers for commercial purposes: for example, the air fleet of the Air Force, the Ministry of Emergencies and the special squad for the transportation of top officials (SLO Rossiya), as well as aircraft owned by aircraft manufacturing plants. The lists we received with detailed information about each aircraft were sent to all operating airlines with a request to confirm the correctness of the data we collected. All responses were included in the analysis results.

Our statistics also included aircraft of the second largest Russian airline, Transaero. The decision on its bankruptcy was made on October 1, and on October 26 the company lost its air operator certificate and ceased operations. The Transaero fleet is in the process of being returned to lessors: Aeroflot, which got part of the airline's routes, may receive several dozen cars, the rest will be sold on the market or written off. Taking into account the entire fleet of Transaero in the sample (according to open data as of October it is 122 aircraft), we were guided by the fact that most of it could be transferred to other Russian operators, and the composition of the fleet reflects the economic model of the largest private Russian carrier.

Which models are chosen

According to our data, there are only 130 long-haul aircraft in Russia, of which 76.6% are Boeing 747, 767 and 777 models.

Two competing aircraft manufacturers provide most of the world's aircraft fleets. According to the international organization Center for Aviation (CAPA, Australia) for April 2013, 39.7% of all ships operated in the world are Boeing aircraft and 28.7% are Airbus. Russia is no exception. Aircraft of the two companies occupy 61.7% of the Russian fleet, 14.3% - other foreign aircraft (Embraer, Bombardier, De Havilland Canada, Let, ATR).

Domestic aircraft account for only 24% of the total fleet of Russian carriers. Moreover, for modern models - An-148, Tu-204, Tu-214 and Sukhoi Superjet - only 6.3%. The remaining 17.7% are old modifications of the An, Tu and Yak, most of which flew back in the USSR. “But in the volume of passenger traffic, the share of these vehicles is less than 5%,” adds Alexander Fridlyand, professor at the Moscow State Technical University of Civil Aviation.

Sukhoi Superjet is the leader in terms of number among modern Russian models: domestic airlines have 39 such boards. “The Sukhoi Superjet has a niche, but it is very narrow due to its size (capacity is up to 100 seats. - RBC),” says Friedland. According to him, for local and regional routes it is large, and on main routes with good passenger traffic it is inferior to economical cars with 150-200 seats. “His niche is the main, but weak in terms of flows directions,” the interlocutor believes.

Of the Soviet aircraft, the An-24 airline fleet has the most - 67 aircraft. A turboprop passenger aircraft for short and medium haul lines was developed by the Antonov Design Bureau (KB) in the late 1950s. The maximum capacity is up to 52 passengers. It is operated mainly by Russian regional companies (RBC considers those who do not make long-haul flights, flights through the capital's air hub and are not based in Moscow and St. Petersburg). “An-24 is the only aircraft in the world of this class that lands on the ground, on packed snow or on ice,” reminds Oleg Smirnov, Honored Pilot of the USSR, President of the Air Transport Infrastructure Development Fund. “It flew throughout the entire airspace of the USSR and is practically indispensable in the current conditions in the Far North.”

What planes fly in Russia Most of fleet of Russian airlines - foreign aircraft. Modern domestic models account for only 6.3% of all operated machines. See the most interesting families and modifications in the RBC gallery RBC research: what Russia flies on View 10 photos

Now the An-24 continues to be used by companies based in the north: Polar Airlines, Yakutia, Chukotavia. So far, it is impossible to replace it en masse with foreign models. First, foreign-made aircraft that could land at the airfields in these regions can accommodate fewer passengers, Kramarenko explains. In addition, the technical documentation for them is in English, which is not known to all pilots and personnel of the An-24. However, during 2012-2013, Yakutia leased five Bombardier Dash 8 aircraft with a capacity of 70 to 80 seats. In addition to Bombardier, Canadian De Havilland Canada 6 Twin Otters fly in the Aeroflot subsidiary of the Far Eastern airline Aurora. Most likely, in the coming years, all An-24s will be replaced by foreign aircraft, “because they run out of their resource, and it will become extremely difficult and expensive to maintain their airworthiness,” predicts Dmitry Mirgorodsky, partner at the consulting company Concuros, former vice president of Sukhoi Civil Aircraft. . There are no replacements for their domestic counterparts.

How old are airplanes in Russia

For example, the average age of the Boeing 737 Classic generation (modifications 300, 400, 500) in Russia is 20.2 years. Generations Boeing 737 Next Generation (modifications 600, 700, 800, 900) - 9.1 years. Modifications Airbus 320 - 7.5 years, A319 - 11.9 years (see infographic). These figures are not much different from the global average. The Dutch airline KLM, according to planespotters.net, Boeing New Generation on average fly at the age of 9.3 years. The American low-cost airline Southwest Airlines, according to USA Today and airfleets.net, is 9.7 years old. Boeing 737 Classic cars (modifications 300, 400 and 500) of this airline are on average over 22 years old.

The oldest model of aircraft flying in Russia is the An-24. On average, they are 42.1 years old. The average age of another Soviet Yak-42 aircraft still in operation is 24.7 years.

What happened to the Soviet design bureaus

The Saratov Aviation Plant, which produced the Yak aircraft, is bankrupt and completely liquidated. The design bureaus that developed the Soviet aircraft, the Tupolev Design Bureau and the Yakovlev Design Bureau (now part of the United Aircraft Corporation) continue to exist mainly by escorting the remaining ships in service, Koval says. Antonov Design Bureau (now the Antonov State Enterprise) is located in Ukraine.

The age of the aircraft, according to professionals, does not affect its technical condition and airworthiness. “As a commander of a ship, I don’t ask: will you give me an old plane or will I fly on a new one - this does not interest me at all,” Smirnov explains. The main thing is whether the aircraft underwent maintenance and repairs on time throughout its life. In addition, every detail of the aircraft has its own resources. By the time, Smirnov says, "the plane is 17 years old, these parts can be replaced several times."

The study showed that 58.7% of the aircraft in the Russian fleet had only one or two operators. And more than ten air carriers that have replaced each other - in the luggage only 3% of the boards. And in many cases, two of the same companies used the aircraft in turn. So, for example, the Izhavia aircraft had a Yak-42: according to airfleets.net, if you take into account the alternation of the same carriers, it changed 20 operators in 28 and a half years. According to Smirnov, professionals are distrustful of an aircraft that previously flew "in countries with high humidity, for example, in Africa." However, both the lessor and the owner are obliged to put such a car in order. In this regard, the lessor, and not the previous operator, is important for the technical condition of the aircraft, the expert believes.

As a rule, carriers abandon aircraft for economic reasons, and not because of the end of its resource, according to a study by the leasing company Avalon (offices in the US, Ireland, Dubai, Singapore and China). In Russia, foreign and new domestic aircraft models cease to be used at the age of 20-23, says HSE researcher Kramarenko. Global figures, according to Avalon research, are similar.

Airline age preferences

In total, there are 16 companies in Russia that operate aircraft older than 25 years for regular and charter flights (see table).

The youngest park is at Pobeda, which has recently started working as a subsidiary of Aeroflot. Her sides are only a year old. Aeroflot, on the other hand, has an average fleet age, according to RBC calculations, of 4.6 years. The planes of Transaero, which stopped flying, were on average 18.6 years old (the S7 fleet - 9.2 years, and UTair - 14 years). In 2005-2008, many Russian airlines, including the Big Four carriers, when fuel prices went up, massively upgraded their fleet, preferring aircraft with lower fuel consumption. In particular, this explains the rather young fleet of foreign aircraft in Russia, Friedland notes.
Low-cost carrier Pobeda is the youngest Russian air carrier with the youngest fleet. Their Boeing averages only a year
Photo: TASS

Each company chooses for itself what is more cost-effective for it: a new or old aircraft, Mirgorodsky emphasizes. For example, buying a new Boeing 737-800 will cost about $48-55 million. The same ten-year-old model will already cost $16-18 million, says Alexander Kochetkov, head of the Gold "nsky Leasing leasing company. But old aircraft also require maintenance costs. Not all companies can afford to pay such amounts at a time - they have to lease cars.In Russia, according to the estimates of Ilyushin Finance Co., at least 80% of aircraft in operation are leased.

This is exactly what the largest market player, Aeroflot, is doing, which is going to enter the top 20 global air carriers in terms of revenue and passenger traffic by 2025. For the sake of this goal, the airline has been not only increasing, but also refreshing its fleet for several years now, General Director Vitaly Savelyev repeatedly said in his interviews. “It is difficult to compete on the world market on an old aircraft,” Mirgorodsky explains the strategy. Aeroflot also gives older models to its subsidiaries: Aurora, Orenburg Airlines, Donavia, Rossiya airlines.

But many companies do not even have enough money to lease new aircraft. Transaero, for example, which dreamed of ousting its state competitor, due to expensive debt financing, as it itself admitted in its financial statements, increased its fleet with cheap foreign and old cars, Vedomosti wrote. After the devaluation of the ruble at the end of last year, leasing for Russian companies has risen in price even for old aircraft (leasing payments are made in foreign currency. - RBC), adds Mirgorodsky. According to Kochetkov's estimates, leasing a new Boeing 737-800 costs an average of $4.2 million per year, and about $2 million for a ten-year one.

Against the backdrop of the collapse of the domestic aviation industry and the ongoing import of Boeings and Airbuses, the important fact that our "people's representatives" fly mainly on Russian aircraft is clearly evident. How long will this injustice continue?

While we, mere mortals, fly on stale and half-rotten imports, the bureaucracy STILL prefers to use Russian (Soviet)-made aircraft, which continue to FLY PROPERLY.

You can talk a lot about how our ministers, the so-called "servants of the people", opened markets for Western companies, thereby destroying domestic aviation. However, it is also necessary to show in this article what the first persons of the state fly on.

The currently existing Special Flight Detachment "Russia" (hereinafter SLO) was created in 2009 to serve the first persons of the state and, in fact, is a SPECIAL PRIVILEGE fleet, which is CONTINUOUSLY AND OPERATIONALLY RENEWED.

As of December 2014, the Rossiya SLO has the following types of aircraft:

Tu-154M - two cars;

IL-96-300 - four;

Il-96-300PU/Il-96-300PU(M1) - four;

Tu-214 of various modifications - eleven vehicles;

Tu-204-300 - two;

Tu-134 - five;

Yak-40 - three;

An-148-100E - three.

In addition, the government squadron has 15 Mi-8/Mi-17 helicopters. And at the same time, in the government fleet there are only two French aircraft "Airbus" A-319 and "Falcon-7X"!

As you can see, it is not difficult to understand why high-ranking officials prefer to fly even on such FAMOUS SOVIET VETERANS as the Tu-134, NOT TO TALK ABOUT THE LEGEND OF THE AVIATION INDUSTRY - Tu-154M!

An extremely important fact is that ALL government aircraft and helicopters have RUSSIAN registration numbers. And this despite the fact that ordinary "foreign" cars are registered either on Bermuda or in Ireland. And at the same time, Russian technicians do not even have the right to board foreign, including offshore, aircraft to check their technical condition, familiarize themselves with flight documents! This speaks volumes. After all, when a flight accident occurs, it's not just about the plane. Much depends on the regulation of the industry. The offshore aircraft is leased from a Russian company. In the event of a tragedy with him, a foreign company receives insurance. And all the costs of compensating the families of the dead and material damage are borne by the Russian side (see N. Chekhovsky's interview for 01/09/2013, "Our aircraft industry was deliberately killed", "Svobodnaya Pressa.ru").

And then an even more ugly truth came to the surface. Back in 1992, the Voronezh Aviation Plant built three aircraft - two for Boris Yeltsin and one for the then Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. The first presidential Il-96-300PU was built quite quickly, but the creation of the second was slowed down for a long time. As a result, in 1995 we decided to make interior decoration in Switzerland - the leader in the arrangement of aircraft interiors for the first persons of various states.

This liner, built for B. Yeltsin in 1996 at the Voronezh Aviation Plant, was once spoken of as a technical miracle. After the modernization, the salon became two-story - with two bedrooms, showers, a meeting room, a relaxation room and even an intensive care unit. The plane was painted in Holland, and the interior was finished in Switzerland according to the sketches of the artist's son Ilya Glazunov. At the same time, the interior decoration of the presidential "Il" is estimated at 35-40 million dollars. At the same time, the total cost of the government's Il-96-300PU, which is considered the most expensive domestic airliner, reaches $400 million.

In the 2000s, several Il-96-300PU(M1) were ordered, equipped with latest systems special communications, telecommunications and navigation. Their interiors are designed like study rooms; the liners are also equipped with modern computers with the data bank necessary for operation.

The presidential Il-96-300PU costs about 400 million dollars, only the interior trim with walnut veneer cost 18 million. Taking into account the cost of bodyguards and other related expenses, the cost of one day of the presidential international tour is about 1.2 million dollars. Considering a large number of high-profile calls to the home by mobile phone and service costs expensive aircraft- all this costs the state 12 million dollars a year.

At the same time, the finishing of the second government "Il" is much richer. In the first Il-96PU there was one bar, in the second - three. The office of the president is, however, small, about nine square meters. But plumbing cost a pretty penny - a bathroom, for example, almost 75 thousand dollars. And all the wooden trim inside is domestic (see the material for 01/30/2007, “The salon of the presidential liner was filmed by one of the members of the“ Kremlin pool ”, www.compromat.ru).

Bye ordinary Russians they cautiously board worn-out Boeings and Airbuses, while domestic airliners go “for storage” (more precisely, for scrap metal), the government, without stint, finances the Rossiya SLO for itself, “people’s deputies” ...

P.S. But not only ministers pamper themselves with "flying palaces". Thus, the Boeing-767-300 of Roman Abramovich is estimated at up to $1 billion. The cabin of the aircraft is trimmed with red and walnut wood, decorated with gold, equipped with all necessary security and communication systems. Work on the alteration of the cabin was also carried out in Switzerland. Such are the things...