As reported by the RBC news agency in the material of Artem Korenyako, Aeroflot for the first time sent an aircraft to Iran for repair. In case of a successful result, the company can send other airliners there," the Russian airline Aeroflot sent an aircraft from its fleet to Iran for maintenance for the first time in history. This was told by two sources of RBC, close to the carrier, and confirmed by its representative. Last week, on April 5, 2023, an Airbus A330-300 wide-body airliner with registration number RA-73700 flew to Tehran, where the aircraft will be serviced by technical specialists of the largest Iranian carrier Mahan Air.
The Airbus A330-343X passenger aircraft (Russian registration number RA-73700, until April 2022 had registration VQ-BNS, serial number 1264, name "A. Bakulev") of Aeroflot Airlines, which was sent to Iran on 05.04.2023 for maintenance (with) the Aviatorschina Telegram ChannelAgainst the background of Western sanctions, Aeroflot sent its aircraft to Iran for repairs for the first time in history.
The competence of local companies in the field of aircraft maintenance, according to the calculations of the carrier, will complement the capabilities of the Aeroflot group.
Aeroflot is the largest Russian airline, which had 178 Airbus and Boeing aircraft in its fleet as of April 1.
RBC sent a request to the Mahan Air press service.
Why did Aeroflot send the plane to Iran for repairsAccording to RBC sources, Aeroflot has been discussing the possibility of maintenance in Iran for several months against the background of Western sanctions that impose restrictions on the work of foreign companies with Russian aircraft.
Iran does not support anti-Russian sanctions and is not afraid of secondary sanctions from the United States or the European Union, says Oleg Panteleev, executive director of the industry agency Aviport. "Over decades of economic blockade by the West (sanctions were imposed for the first time since 1979), Iran has gained extensive competence in repairing aircraft and their components. These factors are enough to develop partnership relations with Iran," the expert believes.
Iran has extensive experience in aircraft maintenance under external sanctions restrictions, agrees Alexander Terentyev, Director for Air Transport Development at the Center for Infrastructure Economics (CEI). In addition, Aeroflot has decided to service aircraft in Iran, since the risk of aircraft arrest in this friendly country is minimal, says Alexander Divakov, Director of the corporate ratings group of the National Credit Ratings Agency (NKR). According to the Bermuda aviation authorities, the A330 aircraft that flew to Tehran for maintenance, as well as two other cars of this type from the Aeroflot fleet, had a so-called double registration on March 1 (it was in the registers of Russia and Bermuda at the same time). "If you try to service [such] boards in countries that have certified centers, these planes will at best refuse to serve, at worst they will be arrested," Divakov said.
The key task of sending the first A330 for repair to Mahan Air is the maintenance of the landing gear racks of the aircraft. Previously, for these purposes, Aeroflot used the capacities of other providers, in particular Hong Kong-based HAECO. In the summer of 2021, the carrier signed a new long-term agreement for the maintenance and overhaul of aircraft components with this company. But due to the international sanctions adopted against Russia in response to the special operation in Ukraine, this agreement cannot be implemented now.
According to one of the sources of RBC, Aeroflot plans to send several more A330 airliners to Iran for maintenance, but the final decision on this will be made as a result of cooperation with Mahan Air on the first aircraft. The representative of Aeroflot did not answer the question about the prospects for further development of cooperation with the Iranian company.
"The maintenance of the Airbus A330 aircraft [in Iran] will be performed by the provider for a wide range of work. The organization [Mahan Air] has the necessary material base, certificates and extensive experience, the provider performs maintenance with a high level of quality," says the representative of Aeroflot. In Iran, a virtually independent system for maintaining the airworthiness of Western equipment has been created, Terentyev points out. "Judging by the absence of serious aviation incidents in recent years, it copes with its tasks," he adds. "The country has established repair and maintenance of foreign aircraft at a high level. Planes of Iranian airlines fly on many international routes, and the aviation authorities of these countries have no complaints about the level of flight safety," Panteleev recalls.
According to the representative of Aeroflot, the competence of Iranian companies in the field of aircraft maintenance and repair will complement the capabilities of the entire group (except for the airline of the same name, it includes the carrier Russia and the low-cost carrier Pobeda).
In 2022, the provider Aeroflot Technologies, which is also part of the Aeroflot group, performed more than 300 forms of periodic maintenance of aircraft. "In 2023, the process of expanding competencies and increasing the volume of work performed will continue. Ultimately, Aeroflot Technologies will become Russia's largest maintenance and repair center for domestic and Western aviation equipment," said Mikhail Korobovich, CEO of Aeroflot Technologies. On March 20, the Aeroflot press service reported that the group's provider had independently replaced the landing gear struts on A330 aircraft for the first time in Russia.
What difficulties have arisen with the maintenance of aircraftWestern sanctions have also affected repair services and the supply of spare parts to Russian carriers.
As a result, for example, the German provider Lufthansa Technik, which has supported hundreds of aircraft of Russian carriers, including Aeroflot, for more than 15 years, has curtailed business in Russia.
Against this background, Russian airlines began to look for alternative opportunities to repair equipment abroad. Thus, the Tatarstan carrier UVT Aero has the experience of sending a Bombardier CRJ200 regional aircraft for maintenance to Iran, two sources close to this airline told RBC. A company representative declined to comment on this information. Rossiya Airlines also sent at least one engine to Mahan Air for repair, a source familiar with the technical specialists of several Russian carriers told RBC. At the same time, there are difficulties with access to spare parts in Iran. "Until recently, Iranian companies bought them all over the world, including Europe and the United States, but recently these supplies have become more complicated, Western countries have become more controlling of supplies to Iran. In some cases, Russian airlines themselves have to find and buy spare parts, and already in Iran they are repaired and installed," he said.
At present, Russian enterprises have not mastered the full range of services for the restoration of aircraft engines, auxiliary power plants, landing gear and some others, the press service of Smartavia told RBC. For this reason, the carrier is considering the possibility of repairing components abroad for the future, they said. "Nevertheless, domestic repair companies are spot-on mastering repairs of certain types of aircraft engines and auxiliary power plants, for which there is maximum demand from Russian airlines," the representative of Smartavia notes. The most difficult positions to maintain in Russia are aircraft engines and propellers, avionics, says Panteleev. "The complexity is dictated by the fact that the creation and approval of repair documentation for such complex products requires more time than the development of documents for the manufacture of the simplest parts, such as tubes, hoses and gaskets," he explains.
According to Igor Smirnov, Senior Director for Corporate Ratings at Expert RA, as long as there are foreign aircraft in Russian civil aviation, carriers will depend at least on engine repairs. "Engine maintenance will never be imported - there are no drawings, and reverse engineering will not give accuracy and account for all the features," Smirnov believes. It is almost impossible to achieve technological sovereignty in terms of servicing components of the most popular Airbus and Boeing aircraft, since there is no production, technology, or technical documentation for key components of these aircraft, Divakov agrees. According to Panteleev, Russian carriers will stop using the services of foreign companies to repair equipment when the service in Russia becomes more profitable from the point of view of the economy or when there will be no imported liners in the country at all. "Based on the fact that it is profitable to service those types of aircraft, of which there are many in the fleet of an airline (or several airlines), it can be assumed that there is simply no point in mastering all types of repairs independently [in Russia]," the expert explained.
On March 31, the head of the Ministry of Transport Vitaly Saveliev told reporters that there are now more than 200 certified organizations in Russia that carry out aircraft maintenance. According to the official, key organizations in Russia have 23 hangars that are capable of simultaneously servicing more than 80 aircraft, of which 14 are wide-body. "The total number of hangars makes it possible to provide aircraft maintenance without queues and downtime," Saveliev emphasized.
RBC sent requests to the press services of the Ministry of Transport, Rosaviation, S7 Airlines, Pobedy, Rossiya, Ural Airlines and Utair.
In turn, the Aviatorschina Telegram channel on this occasion published a material "Aeroflot has started sending aircraft for maintenance to Iran." The firstborn was an Airbus A330 with the tail number RA-73700. On April 5, he flew from Sheremetyevo to Tehran. There he got up for maintenance - to replace the landing gear racks. Taking into account the duration of the procedure, three-day and ten-day checks will also be performed on it, plus a number of unscheduled work. The aircraft in Iran will be serviced by Mahan Air technical specialists.
At the same time, in March it was reported that Aeroflot (Aeroflot-Technics) for the first time itself replaced all the landing gear racks on three Airbus A330 in its hangars at Sheremetyevo Airport within two months.
Russia and Iran have signed an agreement on the export of aircraft parts and equipment to the Russian Federation, as well as maintenance and repair of aircraft of Russian airlines in Iranian repair centers. This was reported by the Mehr news agency with reference to the representative of the Civil Aviation Organization of Iran (CAO) Mir-Akbar Razavi back in July 2022.
Aeroflot was the first to send an A330 aircraft to Iran for maintenance, owned by Hong Kong lessor Goshawk, which is being bought by Japanese SMBC Aviation Capital to create the world's second lessor, but Goshawk aircraft located in Russia and subject to EU sanctions are not involved in the deal.
This aircraft is one of four Airbus A330 that Aeroflot did not buy out last year, as they are under operational leasing (EU sanctions prohibit Russian airlines from buying them out). Since last spring, this airliner began flying mainly in Russia (mainly to Yakutsk), from abroad, only Bishkek was in its flight program. Already in September, it was put into storage. Six months later, on March 19, the board performed a one-time (charter) flight to / from Irkutsk.
In October, two more Aeroflot A330s, which are under operational lease from AerCap and GECAS, were put into storage. From one of them (RA-73701), according to Aviatorschina, the second engine was dismantled. The fourth A330 in operation continues to fly, performing international flights, as it belongs to VTB Leasing.
At the same time, the same Aviatorschina Telegram channel published an article "Iran is mastering engine repairs for Russian Superjet 100 aircraft," which states that Russia also sent the Russian-French SaM-146 engine of the Superjet 100 aircraft to Iran so that it could be disassembled there and tried to master major repairs. Permission for this was issued by the government in coordination with the FSB and the Ministry of Industry and Trade back in February. It is temporary - it is valid until the end of 2023, that is, by January the engine should return back to Russia.
SaM-146 requires major repairs after 2-4 thousand hours of flight. Before the sanctions, it was carried out in two stages: in Russia at the ODK-Saturn enterprise in Rybinsk and in France, where the repair of the most complex, the so-called hot part of the engine (gas generator) was carried out.
In the spring of 2022, due to the EU sanctions, the manufacturer of SaM-146 - PowerJet Company (a joint venture of the French Safran Aircraft Engines and the "daughter" of the Rostec United Engine Corporation UEC-Saturn) stopped supplying and supporting its power plants in Russia, suspending their repair, as well as the supply of spare parts and consumables to the Russian Federation materials.
The head of the UAC, Yuri Slyusar, said in early February that Russian airlines want Russia to learn how to overhaul SaM146. According to him, Russian specialists are currently working on the development of the hot part.
There are now more than 160 Superjet 100s in the fleets of Russian airlines, that is, more than 320 SaM146, plus a reserve of several dozen engines. The replacement of Russian-French powerplants with domestic PD-8s on the SSJ-100 is not yet envisaged due to economic inexpediency: remotorization is comparable to the residual value of the aircraft. Only import-substituted SSJ NEW aircraft will be equipped with PD-8 engines: by 2030, 142 SSJ NEW and 314 PD-8 should be delivered to airlines, 30 of which are for a replacement pool.
