Sanctions Hitting Russian Airlines Harder with Each Passing Month Re-Russia Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 10 – Initially, Western sanctions did not hit Russia’s airlines as hard as many in Moscow feared and many in the West hoped; but now with each passing month, they are affecting that sector ever more deeply with carriers forced to cannibalize some planes to keep others in the air and suffering ever more accidents, the Re-Russia portal says.
    While the Russian carriers were able to carry almost as many passengers in 2024 as they did the year before, analysts expect that they will no longer be able to do so in 2025 and 2026, prompting ever more demands for policy changes that would lead to an end to sanctions in this sector and others (re-russia.net/analytics/0219/).
    This pattern, one that first featured shock but little impact and then reflected growing problems, is true in many sectors of the Russian economy; but Moscow has been able to do end runs around sanctions in most cases or come up with quick fixes. But it hasn’t been able to do that in the case of civil aviation – and so the impact of sanctions is now most visible there.
    In fact, the Russian carriers are becoming a major choke point in the Russian economy and have prompted Moscow to seek to get both planes and spare parts from Kazakhstan to try to minimize the impact of sanctions. If Kazakhstan is not forthcoming, however, Russia will face real problems in this sector over the next few years.