As of the end of May, there were 876 aircraft in the Russian commercial jet fleet down from 968 aircraft in late February.
Most of these were made by Airbus or Boeing planes, both of which stopped supplying spare parts to Russian airlines in order to adhere to sanction rules.
Sanctions have cut a huge chunk out of Russia’s international air traffic, according to consultancy Ascend by Cirium. The number of aircraft it tracked on international flights on June 10 was 179, compared to 493 on January 3, 2020. That’s largely because around 70 percent of Aeroflot’s planes are leased by a company that has called in its aircraft, demanding them back from the Russian carrier.
According to arstechnica.com, the Airbus A320 (reg, YU-APH) landed at 10:37 pm on May 25, 2022, at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport. It had flown in from Belgrade and was due to take off again on a late-night return within the hour.
But there was a problem: The pilot had reported an issue with the plane’s engine casing that needed to be fixed. The supplier of the broken part, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Collins Aerospace, reportedly refused to fix the problem, citing sanctions against Russia resulting from its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
It took six days for the problem to be fixed and the A320 to depart Moscow for Belgrade.
