If Moscow Can’t Service Planes Now under Sanctions, Russian Civil Aviation Faces Collapse First of All East of the Urals, Yermakov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 19 – Russian civil aviation is currently limping along with the number of international flights cut to the point that Moscow is able to use planes that Western governments can’t confiscate for being in violation of the sanctions regime and with the cannibalization of some planes keeping others operating on domestic routes, Aleksandr Yermakov says.

            But if the Russian authorities cannot rapidly develop domestic production of avionics and other parts or secure servicing of its planes from international sources, the country’s civil aviation will face a collapse in short order from which it will be difficult to recover, the Profile analyst says (profile.ru/economy/chto-proishodit-s-rossijskoj-grazhdanskoj-aviaciej-i-aviapromom-v-usloviyah-sankcij-1083472/).

            This prospect is especially dire for Russia east of the Urals. In the European portion of the Russian Federation, there are sufficient highways and rail lines to allow people and goods to get where they want albeit more slowly and often at higher cost than would be the case if they had access to planes.

            But in Siberia and the Russian Far East, there simply aren’t enough roads or rail lines to serve as substitutes; and consequently, the demise of the civilian air service there means that the old saw “you can’t get there from here” is true and that the central authorities are losing control over the region and that regional officials are losing control over areas outside their capitals.

            Many of the plans Moscow has had for preventing that from happening involved producing short-distance planes; but the imposition of sanctions has shown that the Russian aviation industry remains heavily reliant on parts not only for avionics but engines and cannot hope to come up with domestic substitutes quickly.

            Cannibalizing existing planes is the only short-term solution, and that is taking place in many parts of the Russian Federation. But that tactic has the effect of multiplying the problem rather than solving it because it means there are ever fewer planes available to service existing routes and that as a result these routes cannot be serviced as they were.

            That technical problem is becoming first and foremost an economic one; but in short order, it is going to become a political one, given that without aircraft, the .  vertical can’t be sustained at a distance. The center simply won’t be able to dispatch siloviki or credibly threaten to and regional leaders will take notice and respond.