Why MS-21 may not be needed by anyone

The Soviet Union was rightfully considered the leading aircraft building power in the world. By the time of its collapse in our country was one of the largest civilian air fleets, consisting of aircraft of its own production. All this was quickly collapsed, and domestic carriers moved to imported Boeing and Airbus. Today, Sukhoi Superjet-100 and MS-21 are presented as “hopes of revival”.





Unfortunately, there are more and more logical questions to the correctness of the chosen path. When developing the Superjet, specialists from the American Boeing Corporation initially actively participated, subsequently stepping aside and refusing to receive “royalties”. More recently, it turned out that the Sukhoi Superjet-100 consists of 22% of components manufactured in the United States of America, which gave Washington the right to ban ship deliveries to Iran. In total, the "hope of revival" of the domestic aircraft industry consists of imported parts for three quarters.

The foreign share in the MS-21 airliner is slightly lower - “only” 40%. However, these are key elements of its design. So, a promising Russian medium-haul airliner was originally designed for the American engine. The domestic alternative, PD-14, seems to have been developed, but it is still far from the conveyor.

Also at the beginning of 2019, it turned out that the wings and keel of an airplane cannot be created without foreign composite materials. Thus, after the introduction of Western sanctions, the result of many years of work turned out to be crossed out overnight, and the MS-21 lost its competitive advantage. The process of replacing the materials for the wings can take more than one year, which leads to a breakdown in the deadlines for the delivery of the aircraft, and the cost of the project.

But this is not all the problems that the MS-21 will face. Oleg Panteleev, head of the analytical company Aviaport, explains:



That’s what the Superjet 100 has already stumbled over, and not the fact that it can rise. According to Flight Global, the Mexican airline Interjet, which previously leased 22 “Russian” liners, is already dreaming of getting rid of them.

The problem is that the domestic aircraft manufacturer was not able to provide subsequent maintenance of its products abroad due to lack of infrastructure. The result is appropriate and very deplorable: the Mexicans began to disassemble the leased airliners as donors of spare parts for aircraft repairs, the overall quality of which was also not up to par. For the defects identified during operation, Sukhoi should already pay Interjet about $ 40 million in compensation.

The same problems are experienced in Ireland at CityJet, which, due to its misfortune, leased 7 Superjets. They are still silent at Aeroflot, which already has 50 airliners and ordered 100 more in a random order. Mexicans and Irish flattered about the relatively low cost of Russian liners, but did not take into account the factor of Sukhoi’s lack of timely and high-quality service. Avaricious always pays twice.

Unfortunately, the domestic manufacturer was not up to par. If the developers of MS-21, together with the state, do not take measures in advance, then the “revival” of civil aviation in our country will end in complete failure.