Russia faces a cash crisis as it attempts to replace aging fleets and infrastructure.
Alexander Velovich and Paul Duffy/MOSCOW Kevin O'Toole/LONDON
Russia's aviation industry has been fighting a dogged battle to re-emerge from the chaos, which resulted from the collapse of communism in 1990. There are even some optimistic signs that the market may slowly be starting to turn round.
In its latest annual review of civil air transport, the Russian Ministry of Transport went so far as to suggest that 1995 might see the first growth in passenger numbers since the collapse began (Flight International, 15-21 February).
There still remain some conspicuous hurdles to overcome, however, not least the issue of finding funds to replace the ageing and hopelessly inefficient Russian fleet.
Russian minister of transport Vitaliy Yefimov is so worried that he wrote to prime minister Victor Chernomyrdin in November 1994, saying: "Russian civil aviation has non-competitive and inefficient aircraft, with fuel consumption two times higher than that of foreign counterparts. For 25 years, Russian civil aviation has not received new aircraft types."
Yefimov points out, that 75% of large and medium airliners are operated beyond their initial guaranteed lifetimes and that by 1997, as a result of writing off old aircraft, the overall passenger capacity of the available fleet, will be 30% lower than the existing demand for passenger air traffic, among the Russian population.
Yefimov is also concerned about the technical level of the Aviadvigatel Perm PS-90A engine, which powers the new-generation Ilyushin II-96-300 and Tupolev Tu-204 airliners and which is planned for installation on the Ilyushin II-76MF freighter. "The PS-90A's declared lifetime is 1,000h. The average accumulated hours between non-scheduled dismantling is 300h - 100 times lower than that of foreign engines and 50 times lower than national standard requirements," he says.
The minister concedes that the PS-90A is the only indigenous engine available for new Russian airliners. "The Perm production plant is experiencing organisational and financial difficulties and, by itself, will not solve the problems of PS-90A development. It may happen that a single factory will determine the fate of the Russian aircraft industry and civil aviation," he says.
It is no wonder that there is a growing interest by Russian operators in the various programmes to install on Russian transports Western power plants, such as Rolls-Royce RB.211-535s on the Tu-204, Pratt & Whitney PW2337s on the II-96M and CFM 56s on the Ilyushin II-86. P&W is also working with Aviadigatel to turn out the upgraded PS-90P to Western standards.
Few of Russia's airlines can afford to modernise their fleets without support from the state. In 1994 only 18 airliners and four helicopters, were purchased from the home industry, by civil-aviation operators, while 29 fixed-wing aircraft and 63 helicopters, have been completed at manufacturers' plants and await customers. Another 35 aircraft are in various stages of readiness, but are also without customers.
The shortage of orders is presenting a new problem, many plants supplying subassemblies and components, have stopped work and are laying off workers.
A Government order was issued in November 1994 established a leasing company owned and financed by the state and this, in principle, would seem to open the way for fleet purchases. An acquisition plan calls for an injection of 1,800 billion roubles (roughly $440 million), half of which would come from the state and half from other sources such as the airlines' own funds, bank loans and foreign investors. To back this up, a Government order promises 670 billion roubles in 1995 for acquisitions through this leasing company.
The reality of the situation looks very different, however. The Ministry of Economy, which is responsible for allocating resources to the state budget, has so far approved only 26 billion roubles out of the 4,870 billion roubles requested by the transport ministry for capital investment. This enormous funding shortfall is casting a shadow on aerospace and airline sectors alike.
Ideally, the MoT would like to spend 820 billion roubles on civil research-and-development programmes in 1995. Among the projects most likely to benefit would be those of the Tu-204 and the II-96 "with better operational characteristics" - a description most commonly used for models powered by Western engines. In addition, 1995 certification tests are planned for the Ilyushin II-114, Yakovlev Yak-242, Antonov An-38 and An-74T, with flight tests of the Tupolev Tu-334, Tupolev Tu-330 and the Beriev Be-200. Helicopter programmes being promised support by the ministry include the Mil Mi-8MTV Salon (passenger-cabin configuration); the Mil Mi-26K flying crane; the Mil Mi-34VAZ; the Kamov Ka-126 and the Kamov Ka-62. This is an impressive list, but, judging from the status of the programmes and lack of funds, it is easy to predict that some of these plans will not materialise at least not this year.
UTILITY AIRCRAFT
One of the most serious declines in Russian civil aviation has been seen in the utility-aircraft fleet, or "Pankh". Traditionally, utility aircraft in Russia have been widely used for agricultural and forestry work; for supporting gas and oil field operations and for monitoring electricity power lines.
Pankh activity is crucial to the country's more remote regions. Of the work carried out in 1994, almost one-third was in the Tyumen region of southwest Siberia, which covers a vast stretch of land east of the Ural Mountains.
The problem is that, with funding largely unavailable, the speed of the decline has reached critical levels. In 1994, the accumulated flight time in the utility sector amounted to 2.2 million hours, a drop of almost 40% from 1990 levels. Around 5,000 utility aircraft, mostly Antonov An-2 piston biplanes, Mil Mi-2 light and Mil Mi-8 medium helicopters remain grounded because former customers can no longer afford to pay for their use. The MoT says that tens of thousand jobs are at risk and it is asking for state support to ease the situation.
In 1994, there was a slight recovery in the use of the An-2 fleet, to an average of 118 flight hours per aircraft, but this was from an extremely low base of only 102h in 1993. Two years earlier, the fleet had been in the air for an average of 421h per aircraft. This apparent recovery in use is probably caused more by aircraft being sold and withdrawn from service than by any broad increase in activity.
AIR SAFETY
Infrastructure investment, too, is struggling with a lack of funds. A special commission, called the Rosaeronavigatsiya, has been established under the MoT to take control of all the air-traffic-control (ATC) services and centres throughout Russia, which used to belong to regional civil-aviation directorates.
This new structure is supposed to improve air safety, but it, too, is chronically underfunded. A budget of 456 billion roubles was planned for air-safety measures in 1994, but only 54 billion roubles were released. Minimum needs for the federal ATC modernisation programme in 1995 are estimated to be 330 billion roubles, but, so far, nothing has been included in the state budget.
Rosaeronavigatsiya plans to open 120 new air-traffic routes in 1995, with a total range of 25,000km (13,500nm), increasing the relative volume of opened national air space by 4%. Work on the new international route over the North Pole is planned for 1995. The commission points out, however, that it controls a territory 2.6 times larger than that of the US Federal Aviation Administration, but, with around 72,000 personnel, it has only 1.5 times more staff.
It is a depressing and a worrying picture, reflecting not so much the difficulties of Russia's aviation industry in isolation, but the overall crisis of facing both the country's economy and its society.
Source: Flight International
