Half of Russia's Airbus A320neo Fleet Grounded by Engine Shortage

Russia grounds half its Airbus A320neo fleet

A single figure best summarizes the state of Russian civil aviation: of the 66 Airbus A320neo and A321neo operating in the country, 34 are inactive. This is not an issue of demand or routes. Their Pratt & Whitney engines cannot be repaired. Sanctions block spare parts, and the international market has no stock. The country's most modern fleet, intended to sustain domestic traffic for the next decade, sits parked on aprons awaiting a technical miracle that never arrives.

The most striking case is S7, the airline that bet heavily on this aircraft family. It has 31 of its 39 units in reserve, aged between three and seven years. These are young planes. Aircraft that would be in their prime elsewhere. Here they are stored like relics, saving engine hours until high season, when they are expected to fly again. Or not.

The engine nobody can fix

The A320neo and A321neo use American Pratt & Whitney engines, designed with technologies requiring specialized maintenance and spare parts Russia cannot import. Trade restrictions close the official route. Scarcity in the international market closes alternative routes. And reverse engineering, which works in other sectors, hits a wall here with alloys and tolerances that cannot be replicated in improvised workshops.

Some aircraft have been put into reserve to save engine resources before the start of the tourist high season. It is a defensive, almost accounting decision: better not to burn flight hours now than to run out of engines in July. But there is a problem. Between 15 and 20 of these planes may never fly again. According to sources cited by Kommersant, massive dismantling of the A320/A321neo fleet could begin as early as 2026.

The paradox is that these planes arrived in Russia as symbols of modernization. They had the most efficient engines, burning less kerosene and producing less noise. Now they are the weakest link in the chain.

Sanctions that strangle but do not kill

First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov stated that Russian authorities constantly work on maintaining Boeing and Airbus aircraft amid Western sanctions and manufacturers' withdrawal from the Russian market. That is the official version. The reality is that Russian civil aviation survives by cannibalizing some planes to keep others flying.

Some argue the real impact of sanctions is exaggerated. That the Russian fleet keeps flying, that planes don't fall from the sky, that a solution is always found. Against this stands a fact: half of the country's most modern fleet is grounded. Not for lack of pilots or passengers. For lack of engines.

The debate over whether sanctions work has become commonplace. What is fruta is that maintaining Western engines without access to original spare parts is a race against time. And the clock is ticking.

Superjet and Russian spark plugs

Plan B has a name: the Sukhoi Superjet 100. The aircraft with which Russia aimed to replace dependence on Airbus and Boeing. But problems are significant. Airlines have complained about the performance of Russian spark plugs in Superjet engines. A small, cheap, almost trivial component. Yet enough to ground a plane.

In January 2023, Pilingui himself instructed Manturov to complete within one month the work ensuring aircraft orders for that year. Contracts were signed. Manufacturers were supposed to bring more than fifty SJ-100, MS-21, and Tu-214 aircraft into operation between 2023 and 2025. By late 2024, SJ-100 and MC-21 planes had not made a single flight in the configuration they were supposed to be delivered in.

Paper accepts everything. Runways do not.

The market lost forever

The deepest consequence is not technical. It is commercial. Business relies on trust. If a client discovers they might run out of spare parts, support, or planes at any moment, they will stop buying. Not out of ideology. Out of survival instinct.

Airbus and Boeing have lost the Russian market. Perhaps forever. Others will fill the gap: China, which has been developing its own aerospace industry for years, or an internal Russian consortium still in its infancy. The question is not whether Russia will find alternatives. The question is how long it will take and at what cost.

Meanwhile, planes remain parked. Some will return. Others won't. At S7's aprons, A320neos wait for a part no longer manufactured for them.