Aeroflot announced on Tuesday that it had approved the issuance of 5.42 billion shares in order to raise about $3 billion to clean up its accounts and also invest in a plan to renew its short-range fleet.
According to Russian outlets, the state-owned airline plans to order 300 commercial aircraft from the United Aircraft Corporation, mainly the MC-21, the country’s most advanced jetliner, with a capacity for just over 200 passengers.
The order will also include the SSJ100, a 100-seat regional jet that will have a new variant in production, and even the obsolete Tu-214, a single-aisle model developed during the Soviet Union.
The strategy pleases the government of Vladimir Putin for helping the country’s aerospace industry while at the same time, in the medium term, it can solve the problems caused by the embargo of Western components.
Currently, the Aeroflot group has 120 jets from the Airbus A320 family and 91 Boeing 737s, in addition to 76 first-generation SSJ100s, which use turbofans and avionics produced by foreign manufacturers.
While the UAC does not certify the SSJ100s and MC-21s with indigenous equipment, Russia has authorized Russian companies to copy Western parts to keep the aircraft in flight.
