Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with representatives of the aviation industry, take part in the opening ceremony of civil aviation facilities and present state awards on Thursday, the day of the 100th anniversary of Russian civil aviation.
February 9, 1923, is considered to be the birthday of civil aviation, when the Labor and Defense Council of the USSR adopted a decree "On assigning technical supervision over air lines to the Main Board of the Air Fleet and on organizing the Council of Civil Aviation". On March 17, 1923, "Dobrolet" was founded - the first voluntary aviation society, which was developing by contributions of citizens.
Certain pages in the history of Russian aviation were written by constructors and aviators, including Andrei Tupolev, Alexander Yakovlev, Pavel Sukhoi, Sergey Ilyushin and Mikhail Mil. Nowadays hundreds of thousands of Russians use civil aviation services every day - during 2022 Russian airlines transported more than 95 million people. According to Russian Minister of Transport Vitaly Savelyev, the industry plans to increase passenger traffic to more than 100 million passengers in 2023.
Difficult period and new opportunities
Aviation has become one of the hardest-hit industries in 2022. Since last February, 11 airports in the south and center of the country remain closed. At the same time, most European countries have cancelled flights on the most popular routes because of the sky closures. The potential seizure of aircraft at foreign airports, the refusal of foreign lessors and insurers to cooperate forced carriers to temporarily, but for a fairly short period to suspend flights abroad. Since the summer of 2022, Russian airlines have been resuming international flights, and now many domestic companies are flying to Belarus, Armenia, Turkey and even to distant popular resorts such as India (Goa) and Thailand. Since January, after the lifting of quotas in China, airlines, in particular Aeroflot, began an active expansion of flights to this country.
According to the Federal Air Transport Agency, last year the government allocated 172 billion rubles to support civil aviation. Savelyev said that more than 100 billion rubles of this money was intended to subsidize domestic air services, 27 billion rubles - the traditional programs subsidizing regional transportation, transportation of the least socially protected categories of citizens and subsidizing Far East Airlines "Aurora", 19.5 billion rubles - compensation for the cost of tickets returned by passengers.
As the head of state noted earlier, the situation in which the Russian aviation industry found itself due to the sanctions, despite all the difficulties, gives "a unique opportunity to reach a fundamentally new level of development in order to fully implement its own scientific, technological and industrial potential." For example, in his opinion, now the Russian Federation can start producing its own competitive aircraft engines. Putin is sure that Russian civil aviation will have "system rearmament" and switching to Russian made aircraft. According to him, Russian airlines have formed the largest package of orders in modern history, about 500 long-haul aircraft of domestic production.
In particular, in September 2022 the United Aircraft Corporation and Aeroflot signed an agreement of intent for delivery of 339 Russian-made aircraft until 2030. The agreement provides for delivery of 210 MS-21 aircraft, 89 SSJ New aircraft and 40 Tu-214 aircraft. It is planned that the supplies will start in 2023. The president pointed out that when the airlines are switching to domestic planes, everything should be done to make sure that the cost of the new planes is not passed on to the passengers. Putin noted that the task of increasing the volume of domestic flights and improving their affordability to citizens remains among the priorities.
Development plans
In 2022, the Russian government prepared a comprehensive program for the development of air transport of the country for seven years, and more than 700 billion rubles will be allocated to its implementation. It implies that by 2030 the fleet of Russian airlines must be supplemented by more than 1 thousand domestic aircraft. More than 140 of them are SSJ New, 270 MS-21-310, 70 Il-114-300 and Tu-214. A large volume of deliveries of small-size aircraft is planned: TVRS-44 Ladoga, L-410 and Baikal (LMS-901).
Besides, over 760 helicopters are planned to be produced and supplied to the airlines. It is assumed that the emphasis will be made on the production of Ansat and Mi-8 in different modifications, as they are the most popular on the market.
A separate block of the program is devoted to the production of aircraft engines for the entire line of civil aircraft. In total, nearly 5,000 engines for airplanes and helicopters will be produced by 2030.
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Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS