As Kommersant has found out, airlines from Egypt and the Philippines have offered to take away S7 Airbus A320neo with problematic American engines, which cannot be repaired in Russia. The carriers promise to put them on flights between resorts in their countries and Russian cities. Potentially, we could also talk about exchanging idle aircraft from S7 and other Russian carriers for other types of aircraft. Experts say that Russia may be interested in an exchange, but participants in both the domestic and European markets assess the chances of such deals as minimal.
In early August, private airlines AlMasria (Egypt) and SEAIR Int (Philippines) proposed to the Ministry of Transport, Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Savelyev and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to discuss the transfer of Airbus A320/321neo aircraft, leased from S7 Airlines, and to allow the removal of aircraft from Russia. The appeals to the authorities and the air carrier (copies of the letters sent are available to Kommersant) were sent by MelonAero (Montenegro), which is the initiator of the discussion.
In total, S7 has 39 Airbus A320/321neo aircraft in its fleet, of which only 11 A320neo are in operation. All of them belong to foreign lessors. These aircraft make up more than a third of the carrier's fleet. As Kommersant wrote, S7's A320/321neo are equipped with P&W engines, which all operators in the world have encountered maintenance problems with. In Russia, this is virtually impossible due to the complexity of repairs, and they cannot be imported due to sanctions and a shortage of these engines on the market ( see Kommersant of November 21, 2024 ). In addition to S7's airliners, there are still 27 A320/A321neo aircraft in Russia, but they are equipped with other types of engines and are in operation.
