Russia’s airliner programme is making rapid progress — if going backwards still counts as progress
Russia desperately needs large numbers of passenger aircraft, yet its existing programmes remain stubbornly unfinished. With most of the money already spent — or stolen — the authorities once again had to find a way of putting more into the pot. The government has therefore raised funding for a subsidised leasing programme covering 63 domestically built airliners from 175.4 billion roubles to 290.7 billion roubles.
The number of aircraft has not changed at all. Deliveries, however, have shifted from 2023–2025 to 2026–2029. In other words, the programme has gained no extra aircraft, merely a larger budget and a longer timetable. Russia will still receive the same 63 aeroplanes, only later and at greater cost.
## The funding line rose instead of the aircraft
The revised document assigns a financing value of 3.781 billion roubles to each SJ-100, 5.338 billion roubles to each MC-21 and 6.005 billion roubles to each Tu-214.
These figures are not conventional list prices set by the manufacturers. They represent the financing attached to the state-backed leasing scheme, including its programme-specific terms. Airbus and Boeing can therefore leave their price lists safely in the drawer: for now, at least, there is no global price war heading their way.
## The delivery schedule has learnt to fly backwards
Under the original plan, all 63 aircraft were supposed to be completed between 2023 and 2025. The revised schedule now calls for the first SJ-100 to be handed over to an operator in August 2026 and the last in January 2029.
MC-21 deliveries are due to begin in January 2027 and end in January 2028. The first two Tu-214s are scheduled to reach an operator in October 2027, with the final aircraft following in April 2029.
The same government order also postponed dozens of other production-development deadlines. Some tasks were given a new due date of June 2026, even though the order itself was not signed until 2 July 2026. That is project management at its most efficient: the deadline can expire before it has even been officially introduced.
## Certification now has to catch up with the timetable
Rostec said on 3 June 2026 that certification testing for the SJ-100 and MC-21 had entered its final phase. At that point, the SJ-100 still had roughly one-fifth of its certification flights left to complete. In May, Rostec had said that the MC-21 had completed only around one-third of the required flight-test programme.
Handing over the first SJ-100 as early as August 2026 would therefore require an exceptionally rapid dash to the finish. Ownership of an aircraft can, of course, be transferred before scheduled passenger services begin. Passengers, however, still need a certified aircraft rather than an attractive entry in a leasing spreadsheet.
The PD-8 engine received its type certificate in June 2026. That cleared one important hurdle, but certifying the engine is not the same as certifying the complete SJ-100 with its imported systems replaced by domestically made alternatives.
## Commercial risk has disembarked too
The state is financing the programme through 25-year bonds. The interest rate is set at 0.01% for the first four years, rising to 1.83% thereafter. At the same time, the leasing term has been extended from 18 years to 22.
A rate of 0.01% is less a price for money than a polite acknowledgement that interest exists. The state provides the funding, a state-linked company builds the aircraft and the state helps find operators. The market economy is involved mainly as a spectator.
The customer has become more nebulous too. Aeroflot’s name has disappeared from the previous version of the scheme, while the new document refers more generally to certified Russian airlines. The aircraft will therefore arrive later and cost more, but at least nobody has to know exactly who will take them yet. After all, the timetable can always move again.
## European rivals can sleep soundly
The MC-21 was originally presented as a challenger to the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families. Genuine competition, however, requires certification, series production, an international maintenance network, spare-parts support and predictable residual values.
EASA has suspended the type certificates it issued to Russian manufacturers, while European Union restrictions prohibit the supply of aviation technology and technical assistance to Russia. For now, therefore, the SJ-100, MC-21 and Tu-214 compete with European aircraft mainly on presentation slides.
These aircraft still have an important role to play in Russia’s domestic market. Russian airlines must replace a fleet of Western-built aircraft that is ageing rapidly and becoming increasingly difficult to support, at a time when official manufacturer maintenance and normal spare-parts supplies are no longer available. That makes the programme strategically essential, but necessity does not automatically turn a delay into an achievement.
## The bill took off before the aircraft did
The outcome is straightforward: the number of aircraft has not increased, the programme’s cost has risen by 65.7%, and the final delivery has slipped to April 2029.
In Russia’s official language, this is a refinement of the investment project’s parameters. In plain English, the bill has taken off while the aircraft are still on the taxiway.
