WASHINGTON—Europe’s top aviation regulatory official sees little wiggle room for providing Russian operators access to maintenance and spare parts even as he acknowledges the mounting safety risk of operating under sanctions that prevent even basic technical support.
“If you start to have bypasses to the ban on spare parts, it never ends,” EASA Executive Director Patrick Ky said. “I’m all for having an approach which looks at specific cases where it’s absolutely needed to enable the flight to take place for humanitarian reasons, for instance, but it shouldn’t become the norm.”
Wide-ranging sanctions put in place in response to Russia’s late February invasion of Ukraine cut off access to parts, maintenance services and even technical consultations for Russian and Belarusian operators. Russian operators still have more than 560 Western-built aircraft, ranging from helicopters to transport-category widebodies, Aviation Week Network’s Fleet Discovery shows. About 250 are Airbus models, while another 180 are Boeing-built. Many of them belong to lessors, but Russian operators—following government orders issued in response to the sanctions—have refused to hand them over.
Airspace bans, the threat of repossession, and reductions in both passenger and cargo flying mean most of them are staying within Russia’s borders, if they are operating at all. Ky said EASA is concerned that the situation could deteriorate quickly as operators improvise to keep aircraft in service without access to routine support.
“We hear that the Russians will use some of their aircraft to cannibalize, to take some spare parts. Under what conditions is this done? We don’t know,” Ky said, speaking to reporters at the recent FAA/EASA International Aviation Safety Summit in Washington. “If you have an aircraft which is not maintained, which doesn’t have access to spare parts ... [They] are safe now. In six months, who knows? In one year, who knows? I’m very worried about the situation in Russia.”
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