moscow Extending the Service Life of Irreplaceable Aircraft

The ministry of industry and trade of the rf has announced a tender to extend the service life of Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft. The contract is worth $60.6 million, with a deadline of December 2028. The tender is an admission that the populist program to revive the russian aviation industry is falling apart at the seams.

The comprehensive program for the development of the russian aviation industry through 2030, approved in June 2022, called for the delivery of 42 modernized SSJ100s to airlines. 12 have been delivered. The reason is prosaic: the PD-8 engine, without which mass production of the updated version is impossible, still has not been certified. The program is stalled. The planes remain on the drawing board.

The same applies to the rest of the aircraft with which moscow was supposed to replace its foreign fleet: the MC-21, Il-114-300, Tu-214, and Il-96-300. Out of the entire list, exactly one additional aircraft – the Tu-214 – made it to the airlines. Plans to produce up to 120, and later 200, aircraft per year have turned into a statistical joke.

Now, instead of new aircraft, the agency is proposing a different solution: let the old ones fly longer. Research and development work is intended to increase the SSJ100’s flight cycle limit from the current 10,000–15,000 to 15,000–20,000, the permissible flight time from 15,000–25,000 to 25,000–40,000 hours, and the service life of some derived versions from 15 to 20 years. Since the contract value for the aviation industry is negligible, this actually means a paper reclassification of the aircraft’s service life with minimal technical upgrades.

There are currently about 159 SSJ100s in service, nearly half of which are operated by rossiya airline, part of the aeroflot group. Some of these aircraft rely on SaM146 engines, which were manufactured by the PowerJet joint venture in partnership with the French company Safran – a company that withdrew from russia after February 2022. How exactly this technology, which is dependent on the French, will be maintained after the service life extension is a separate question, the answer to which is not provided by the tender documentation.

Furthermore, the russian company “odk-saturn”, which holds a 50% stake in the SaM146 engine developed by the PowerJet joint venture, refuses to assume responsibility and the status of its developer. Because of this, it is impossible to carry out major overhauls in the rf or to approve changes to the aircraft’s documentation. Currently, the “odk” is recognized only as the developer of modifications, which can update service bulletins and “communicate them to carriers”. The “odk” categorically refuses to assume responsibility for service life extensions and major engine repairs.

The program’s failure is also evident in the revision of its targets. Until recently, moscow had expected that by 2030, domestically produced aircraft would account for 80% of the russian airline fleet. That target has now been lowered to 50%. The reality is even more modest: as of May 2026, the share of domestically produced aircraft in the fleet is about 19%, with a forecast of 20% by the end of the year.

Extending the service life of the SSJ100 is not a technical solution, but a way to hide a disaster. russia cannot build new aircraft in the required quantities, so it pays to keep the old ones flying longer. The longer these aircraft remain in the sky, the higher the risk to passengers and the more evident the collapse of what the kremlin once called its technological sovereignty program.