Vitaly Savelyev, the head of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, talked about the ongoing negotiations with foreign lessors who want Russian airlines to return the aircraft due to sanctions.
The Russian government will need to address the matter of buying back over 500 aircraft leased from foreign companies. This was mentioned by Vitaly Savelyev, the head of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, during a speech in the Federation Council, as reported by leading Russian news agencies.
“First, we need to decide with the government what to do with the airlines, which we, in general, encouraged to leave the planes. That is, the repurchase of aircraft should be or should not be. Requests have already been received on [возврат] more than 500 foreign-made aircraft. I’ll just tell you the amount of the buyback – it’s $20 billion in residual value, if you buy back what we underpaid. This is a very large amount,” the minister said.
Savelyev also mentioned that Russian air carriers are attempting to negotiate with lessors for the purchase of aircraft, but these efforts have been unsuccessful. According to him, the company’s lease payments must continue to be paid, but the lessors do not want to sell the aircraft.
The minister described the lessors’ demand for the return of the aircraft as a political decision.
“If you give them 500 aircraft, they won’t be able to remarket them, they won’t be able to resell them, that is, they just take them away, because such a political decision,” Kommersant quoted him as saying.
Russian air carriers previously lost 78 aircraft, which were seized abroad due to sanctions related to the conflict in Ukraine. The seizures of Russian airlines' planes occurred in “friendly countries” such as Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Before this, 111 Russian airlines had a total of 1,367 aircraft.
On March 14, a law signed by President Vladimir Putin was published on the official portal of legal information. This law allows the registration of foreign aircraft leased by Russian airlines in the country.
The majority of foreign aircraft used by Russian airlines were registered in Bermuda. Since March 13, the Bermuda authorities have suspended the airworthiness certificates for these aircraft, after which they continued to operate on an essentially illegal basis.
As a reminder, the European Union imposed a ban on leasing aircraft to Russian airlines as part of the sanctions related to the conflict in Ukraine. Additionally, a ban was placed on the sale of aircraft spare parts.
