S7 Airlines said it is «completing work» on one of its Il-86s, which will begin operating flights from Novosibirsk to Moscow and St. Petersburg on March 30. The model will return to service after nine years of storage as part of the foreign aircraft replacement program.
Prior to the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, S7 operated aircraft from Airbus, Boeing, and Embraer. Due to sanctions imposed by Western countries, the use of such machines has become problematic for the airline: the supply of spare parts and updates of navigation databases have been stopped.
«This is a fairly new aircraft: it was built in 1988» Vladislav Filev, head of S7 Airlines, told Panorama. He further remarked that «although it has not been used for 9 years the aircraft was maintained at the airport, so it still has a decent life ahead of it». The equipment could fly for six to eight years, and then «we will replace it with something,» he added. Finally, he closed by saying that all tickets for the first flight of the Il-86 are sold out.
The Russian Federal Air Transport Agency undertook to issue the aircraft’s airworthiness certificate as soon as possible. In order not to delay its entry on the line, inspectors will not carry out any checks on the technical condition of the equipment but will limit themselves only to checking the serial numbers of its components. According to S7 engineers, the most difficult task for them was cleaning vandalism from the cockpit and removing debris from the engines.
Is the Tu-214 going to be manufactured again?
«Prospects are very good,» launched Russian Federation Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov during a visit to the Tupolev plant in Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, referring to plans to resume Tu-214 production. «It’s urgent to restore production of domestic models in adequate quantity,» the head of state added. The Tu-214, which is currently produced in small batches for government operators, could be reintroduced for commercial transport.
The Tu-214 was introduced on March 21, 1996, as a variant of the Tu-204, which has been in production since 1990. This model can carry up to 210 people over a maximum distance of 4,340 kilometers, occupying a similar role to the Boeing 757.
Dalavia Airlines became the type’s launch customer in 2001, using it to fly from Khabarovsk to Moscow, Japan, China, Singapore, and South Korea. Rossiya, meanwhile, used a dozen Tu-214s for its flights from Moscow to India, Israel, and Mongolia.
If the program resumes, the Tu-214 could be upgraded to the standard Tu-214SM. This will seek to take developments from the most advanced version of the family, the Tu-204SM, and implement them on the Tu-214. This variant of the type was introduced in December 2010, but the project was suspended in 2019 and no further progress was reported.
See also: Russia: foreign manufacturers refuse to supply components for the Irkut MC-21
