Aeroflot to order 300 Russian-made planes, boost capital by $3 billion

Aeroflot, the flag carrier and the largest airline in Russia, plans to order 300 new aircraft from local manufacturer United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), Russian-based media reported.

The order will mainly consist of domestically-made Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ100) regional aircraft and single-aisle Irkut MC-21 aircraft. The airline also ordered an unspecified quantity of medium-range narrow-body Tupolev Tu-204 aircraft, Vedomosti reported citing undisclosed sources on June 8, 2022. Aeroflot and UAC are expected to sign the agreement for the aircraft acquisition in June 2022.

Speaking to TASS on June 2, 2022, Sergei Chemezov, the chief executive of UAC parent company Rostec, said that the manufacturer plans to supply Russia’s aviation market with more than 110 indigenous planes of various types by 2025 while expecting to increase production rates to more than 500 aircraft by 2030.

However, earlier in March 2022, the country’s Prime Minister Yury Borisov warned that because of the international sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, mass production of two Russian flagship airliners, the SSJ100 and MC-21, will be delayed between 1 and 2 years.

“In the production of these two flagship models, we used to rely on the supply of Pratt & Whitney engines in the part of the MS-21, which will no longer be supplied,” Borisov confirmed to Interfax. “This means that the serial volumes that we plan should now be completely replaced by the domestic PD-14 engine.”

Neither Aeroflot nor UAC disclosed when any of the 300 new planes would join the airline’s fleet, according to the reports?

On June 7, 2022, Aeroflot also revealed plans to raise around $3 billion (₽185.2 billion) in its equity capital by issuing more than 5.42 billion additional shares through an open subscription at a price of $0.57 (₽34.29) per share.

“The Extraordinary General Meeting of shareholders held on 3 June 2022, approved measures to bolster Aeroflot Group’s financial stability and to restructure obligations under letters of credit,” Aeroflot wrote in a statement.

It continued: “Shareholders approved an increase in the Company’s equity capital of up to 5,424,308,073 additional shares through an open subscription at a price of RUB 34.29.”