Aeroflot sent its aircraft for maintenance to Iran for the first time due to international sanctions that prevent aircraft from being repaired and serviced in other countries. This was reported by two sources of RBC, close to the carrier. The information was also confirmed by a representative of Aeroflot.
The Airbus A330-300 wide-body airliner with registration number RA-73700 flew to Tehran on April 5, where the aircraft will be repaired by specialists from the Iranian carrier Mahan Air. Interlocutors of RBC said that the company had been discussing this possibility for several months.
The landing gear of the aircraft is subject to maintenance, RBC emphasizes. Previously, Aeroflot used other providers for this, in particular Hong Kong's HAECO.
On March 31, the head of the Ministry of Transport, Vitaly Savelyev, stated that now there are more than 200 certified organizations in the Russian Federation that carry out maintenance of aircraft. According to him, this is enough to avoid "queues and downtime."
Earlier in March, the Aviatorshchina project found out that Aeroflot was going to buy 4,400 foreign aircraft, although we are talking about toy models that cost about 28 million rubles.
Due to sanctions, Boeing and Airbus aircraft are no longer supplied to Russia. Against this backdrop, Russian airlines have taken to disassembling aircraft to secure spare parts they can no longer buy abroad. The moves are in line with advice the government has given airlines to use parts from some aircraft so that the remaining foreign-made aircraft can continue to fly until at least 2025.
As The Insider noted, in the second half of 2022, the number of serious accidents in Russian aviation increased . According to experts, the main reasons are the unpreparedness of the Russian Federation for sanctions and the lack of control over the quality of parts that are now bought from partners from “friendly countries” without the necessary certification.