There was information about the interest in Italy for the Superjet 100 aircraft during 2021 in different media, both Russian and European. The interest, not least of all, was caused by the successful operation of this aircraft in a period of severe restrictions in international air traffic, related to the pandemic coronavirus.
One of the facts of demand and reliability of the SuperJet can be exemplified by the spring of 2020 when the only Russian low-cost airline Pobeda stopped flying their B737-800 for two months to reduce the costs of a serious drop in passenger traffic, while the Azimut airline, which also has a monoflot, but consisted of SSJ100 aircraft, continued to carry passengers.
Some media reported about intentions of Air Italy and EGO Airways to start commercial flights with Russian regional planes. On December 14, 2021 we had a meeting in Venice to discuss selling SSJ100 to Italian carriers.
Our editorial team asked Superjet International to comment on the meeting and answer a few questions. But Giacomo Perfetto, the SJI communications manager, referring to the confidentiality of the meeting and the issues discussed at the meeting, refused to comment, suggesting to be patient.
New carriers who would like to get SSJ100 to their fleets cannot expect them until the end of 2022 at least – all aircraft have already been distributed between the existing operators. At the same time there are 22 SSJ100 aircraft on the balance sheet of Interjet Airlines in Mexico. Since mid-December 2020 none of these Superjets does not fly, the company is in pre-bankruptcy state, the ineffective management has led to the fact that the aircraft do not correspond to airworthiness, some of them are broken, the entire fleet requires capital investment to restore.
We approached Oleg Evdokimov, the President of ATEO Air, a recognized leader in the promotion of the Russian SSJ100 for export markets, to describe the situation in Mexico and the possible fate of these 22 aircraft.
– Oleg Andreevich, we learned from a well-informed source in the Russian aviation industry, that there are plans to restore six SSJ100 aircraft of Interjet airlines and offer them to new customers. Is there any progress in this matter?
– The situation is complicated but we are making progress. After a year of standstill, the real owners of the planes – the consortium of banks headed by Igor Shuvalov VEB – have got involved. Obviously, the only sensible option is to restore the planes in Mexico and use them in the region. Peru, Panama, Argentina, and Uruguay have shown interest in our aircraft, but Irkut Corporation and previously GSS are extremely inert in pursuing Russian interests in export markets.
Let’s see how the new head of the company, Andrei Boginsky, performs. We would like to hope that the realization of the obvious fact that production development is impossible without an aggressive struggle for foreign markets will become the norm.
Oleg Evdokimov said that Interjet is running out of protection from creditors in Mexico, and we can expect the sale of assets. According to him, the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) center in Toluca is of particular interest in Russia, taking into account the need to restore our aircraft.
– Negotiations with Mr. Del Valle are going on. The U.S. banking institutions ATEO cooperates with have expressed an interest in financing the deal to buy the center. We are waiting for interest from Russian [investors]. Although supporting Russian interests is not particularly popular with today’s oligarchs.
– Is it possible for SuperJets to return to Europe? In Venice, where we asked for comments on the December meeting, they recommended us to be patient and wait…
– I’d like to think that perhaps, and ideology of buying back regional companies in financial difficulty, is getting more and more chance of success. But negotiations are difficult, because the owners do not want to accept the negative values of the price of their companies with serious debts.
At the same time, the understanding that the pandemic has dealt a crushing blow to low-cost airlines with aircraft of about 200 seats is already becoming massive, and we are waiting for requests for Superjets from relatively successful companies as well,” added Oleg Evdokimov.
