The domestic MS-21 airliner will cost at least twice as much as its Western competitors – Boeing and Airbus aircraft. Its price is initially lower, plus the state wants to consciously support the aviation industry so that airlines do not have to dramatically increase the cost of air tickets due to the huge costs of updating the fleet. There are no problems with the demand for a new domestic liner. The cost of the domestic MC-21 aircraft, which will replace the mainline aircraft of Western concerns in airline fleets, has been named.
"The cost of the new MS-21 for Aeroflot and other carriers will be significantly lower than the market. This is a deliberate step by the state, which wants to reduce the burden on airlines – and, consequently, on passengers whose ticket price includes a lease payment. This is done specifically so that at a difficult moment for the industry, airlines can afford to purchase new equipment, and domestic transportation develops," said Sergey Chemezov, head of Rostec.
He did not name a specific price. However, a TASS source in government agencies says that the cost of the new MS-21 aircraft will be about 3 billion rubles for Russian airlines, while a similar Boeing costs 5-6 billion rubles.
The state will help the aviation industry partially compensate for the cost of aircraft, Chemezov stressed. "Similar approaches work in many countries, in the same Europe or China, where the authorities deliberately subsidize the cost of aircraft for carriers in order to maintain a competitive price level," said the head of Rostec.
Head of the aviation portal Avia.ru Roman Gusarov is surprised at the named cost of Western competitors MS-21. "This, apparently, was still considered at the old exchange rate, when the dollar was worth around 60 rubles. But now the dollar is worth 80, and the official catalog price of the new Boeing 737 Max – an analogue of the MS-21 – is more than $ 100 million. Similarly, there is an analog of Airbus," says the aviation expert. That is, the Russian MS-21 can cost not even two, but three times cheaper than new foreign analogues.
"The mechanisms of subsidizing and other state support will help to make leasing payments on MS-21 lower than on foreign analogues. This is done so that the new MS-21 in leasing is not more expensive than used Boeing and Airbus. In the early 2000s, airlines actively began to abandon new Russian aircraft, for example, the Tu-204, and buy old Boeing. Not because our liners were so bad. But because a new plane is always more expensive than a used one from the secondary market. And then our industry stopped producing anything, and airlines had to buy new foreign planes," the expert recalls.
However, now the situation is unique in itself. Firstly, the MS-21 itself promises to become not only on a par with its characteristics, but above its Western competitors. Secondly, the aircraft will consist entirely of domestic components, including a domestic engine. Finally, the price will be much more profitable, and leasing payments – too.
State support in this case is not needed at all to stimulate demand, as it usually happens.
"The demand for MS-21 should not be stimulated. Airlines will take our plane at any price, because they now have no alternative. Moreover, the number of aircraft that they promise to produce by 2030 is still not enough. This will not be enough to replace all Boeing and Airbus in the fleets of our airlines. It will take more time",
– explains Roman Gusarov.
According to him, if the air transportation market remains at the current level of about 100 million passengers per year, then there will be enough planes, but end-to-end. Because the fleet of airlines is ideally updated every year: some airliners are written off due to age, others due to breakdowns, etc. We are talking about supporting airlines in difficult times so that they do not have to sharply raise air ticket prices due to increased costs for the purchase of new aircraft.
"The aviation fleet is in rotation all the time. Our airlines ordered new planes, planned to expand the fleet. However, in 2022, not a single new liner arrived, they refused to deliver them to us. On the contrary, we lost about 70 aircraft due to sanctions - they were arrested and taken away. That is, our fleet of mainline aircraft has already decreased by 10% last year. There won't be any new planes in 2023 either. Only at the end of 2024 will the first few MS-21s appear. That is, for almost three years, airlines will fly without updating the fleet of aircraft. Prior to that, every year the fleet of mainline liners was updated by 150 aircraft. This means that further it will be necessary to update the fleet at an accelerated pace in order to catch up," says Roman Gusarov.
The fleet of mainline foreign aircraft in Russia has about 700 aircraft. All of them should be replaced with domestic liners. However, it is impossible to take and produce so many aircraft in a couple of years that have just received certification. Serial production of the MS-21 will gradually gain momentum. In 2024, according to the plan, five to six MS-21 aircraft will be produced, and then, under a good scenario, production will double every year. And this is already a great pace of deployment of production, it does not happen faster in the West.
If five MS-21 aircraft will be produced in 2024, then in 2025 – ten MS-21, in 2026 - 20 airliners, in 2027 – 40, and only in 2028 the plant will be able to produce 70-75 MS-21 per year. Only after that, airlines will be able to feel a noticeable influx of new mainline aircraft. However, this will still not be enough to replace all foreign equipment in the amount of 700 pieces. This will happen after 2030.
What kind of stimulation of demand for the MS-21 can we talk about now, if all future aircraft have already been contracted by major airlines. And small carriers of this aircraft simply did not get it. It is planned to deliver 210 MS-21s to Aeroflot alone by 2030.
"The state wants to support the affected aviation industry as a whole in order to create an economic model that would satisfy both airlines and passengers.
In order to avoid an increase in airline costs, and they did not have to choose: either fly cheap and go bankrupt, or fly expensive, but without passengers – and also go bankrupt. Both options are bad",
– the interlocutor notes.
Whether to expect an increase in air traffic in the coming years is still difficult to say. The expert believes that if Russia keeps passenger traffic at the current level in the next three years, this will already be a good result.
Olga Samofalova
