In April 2023, Rostec head Sergey Chemezov announced plans to fix the cost of new MC-21s for Aeroflot and other Russian carriers. According to him, we are talking about below-market prices, which should help airlines reduce costs and make flights on Russian aircraft more affordable, the cost of tickets for which includes a leasing payment. Such a measure is part of the state strategy to support civil aviation, Chemezov said at the time.
The state will partially compensate the costs of aircraft production, which will keep the price at around 3 billion roubles for the MC-21, while a similar Boeing aircraft costs 5-6 billion roubles. This practice, according to Chemezov, has already been successfully applied in Europe and China, where the authorities subsidise aircraft to prevent the growth of airfares and support the competitiveness of national carriers.
In an interview with Vedomosti on 10 September 2024, First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said that it is difficult to predict the final price of the MC-21 for airlines. At the moment, preparations for mass production are underway and the exact look of the aircraft has not yet been formed.
‘The catalogue price, even in the global market, has not reflected the real cost of acquiring airliners for commercial traffic for a long time, because everything depends on what the leasing rate for it will be. While we are calculating the real volume of costs for the production of this aircraft, taking into account all the new inputs and delivery start dates, it is practically impossible to calculate the rate. But I predict that it will not differ significantly from what our operators pay for foreign equipment,’ said Deputy Prime Minister, answering the question of what will happen to the pricing of MS-21, given the need for large-scale replacement of imported units.
He added that an adequate compromise price will be formed for the MC-21-310 aircraft, but at the first stage compensation of the leasing payment rate will be needed.
‘For now we will not bargain for it with the operators. We will wait until the first aircraft is released, calculate the costs of its production, and this will be the basis for applying to the Ministry of Finance for subsidies,’ Denis Manturov added.
