Russia and the International Standard of Airworthiness and Maintenance.

 I had "Blogged" about Russian aviation sending their commercial aviation assets to Iran for heavy maintenance, as Russia tries to keep their western based planes flying.  The longer this goes on the harder it will be to reconcile the planes with the manufacturer and the recommended maintenance schedule.  I'm pretty sure those plane will wound up being scrapped,

 

Any hope of a quick resolution in the Russia-Ukraine war is long gone. 

Nearly 15 months and counting since Russia invaded its neighbor, the idea that anything affected can be easily reset to its pre-war status is gone, too. That includes the war’s ramifications on commercial aviation.

The wave of sanctions that Russia’s invasion triggered had immediate consequences for the country’s airline industry. Belarus, which served as a base for the invasion, has been hit, too. 

Forget adding new or used Western-built aircraft to the Russian or Belarussian fleets. Everything from spare parts to airworthiness directives are no longer available legally for the existing fleets.

This means hundreds of aircraft—the backbone of Russia’s commercial fleet—could no longer be maintained to internationally agreed-upon standards. The restrictions extend to some Russian-built aircraft because of their reliance on Western suppliers.

The sanctions came with flight bans that have gutted Russia’s route networks. Russian carriers moved 25% fewer people in 2022 than 2019, a recent Carnegie Endowment analysis found. The share of international traffic has fallen from 43% to 10%—a direct result of the sanctions.

As the figures show, however, the sanctions, while damaging, have hardly put Russia on a commercial aviation island. Aeroflot’s website shows flights to a handful countries beyond Russia’s borders, including China, Egypt, India, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

As a recent white paper from the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) points out, permitting Russian carriers—or any carrier, for that matter—to fly into your airspace is far more than a political decision. It’s a regulatory one, with ramifications.

“State regulators have an obligation to carry out effective oversight over foreign operators flying in their territory, with closer scrutiny on aircraft registered in sanctioned states,” FSF noted.

The reasons are simple. Without access to spare parts and technical support, sanctioned carriers are forced to get creative.

“The disrupted supply of components may result in affected air operators from Russia and Belarus stripping parts from parked planes or being tempted to explore alternative unapproved sources or parts in order to continue flying,” FSF said. “Parts may even be swapped out and find their way to the [maintenance] facilities, possibly being accepted by regulators with weak oversight or those that lack the engineering competence to further scrutinize the paperwork.”

Software updates, which are fairly common on today’s advanced air transports, are no longer available. Russia’s official response? Permit aircraft on its registry to operate without them.

It’s not clear how regulators in the countries Russian carriers are still permitted to operate are handling their oversight obligations.

FSF sees little room for error.

“With the large number of prolonged sanctions, as well as U.S. Export Controls currently in place on Belarus and Russia, state regulators worldwide need to be fully aware of the current international sanctions in effect and their implications on aviation safety,” the foundation said. “States unable to adequately ensure safety and provide adequate safety oversight—particularly of aircraft registered in sanctioned states—should not allow these flights into their airspace.