Russia has appealed to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) with a statement of violation of the Convention on International Civil Aviation by 37 countries, including the US, UK, Canada and all EU countries, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
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In Moscow, sanctions imposed by Western countries since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which the Russian Foreign Ministry calls “illegal unilateral restrictive measures,” are considered a violation of the convention.
The dispute will be considered by the ICAO Council, and, according to the provisions of the Convention (better known as the Chicago Convention), all council members who are parties to the dispute will not be able to vote. There are currently 36 states represented in the Rada, including at least nine “defendants” mentioned by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
This maneuver may indicate that Moscow believes that the remaining countries (including, for example, China, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Venezuela, Bolivia, Equatorial Guinea, the UAE and Zimbabwe) will react more favorably to its complaint.
At its session in autumn 2022, the ICAO Assembly, uniting all its members, condemned Russian aggression against Ukraine and related violations of the Russian Chicago Convention, including the double registration of aircraft (following refusal to return them to lessors).
Another recent high-profile example of ICAO Council consideration is the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in Belarus to arrest opposition journalist Roman Protasevich in May 2021. At the same 2022 session, ICAO found Belarus in violation of the convention.
Meanwhile, it became known that the Russian airline S7 will reduce its autumn-winter flight schedule by 10-15% due to problems with the repair of engines installed on Airbus A320 and A320/A321neo aircraft, Kommersant reports.
According to the newspaper, 21 S7 aircraft (20% of the fleet) are currently idle, including 13 of the 39 aircraft of the neo family. As the newspaper’s sources in the Ministry of Transport explained, these aircraft are equipped with GTF engines from the American company Pratt & Whitney (P&W), which are not repaired either in Russia or in Iran.
The newspaper noted that other Russian carriers do not have such problems with A320/A321neo aircraft, since they are equipped with French-American CFM Leap engines, produced in large series. Thus, Aeroflot has only one A321neo idle out of 58 aircraft in the family.
However, an aviation industry source noted that both engines are extremely difficult to maintain. He suggested that later airlines using Leap engines may also face the impossibility of servicing them in Russia.
At the same time, a representative of the company Willis Lease Financial Company, specializing in engine leasing, Dmitry Voskresensky, in a conversation with the newspaper, noted that it is virtually impossible to service modern P&W and CFM engines without official support, since they are very dependent on updated software.
Voskresensky also added that only three or four companies in the world are engaged in repairing Leap engines, and only P&W is servicing GTFs. At the same time, GTF, according to the expert, has many so-called childhood diseases that can be corrected over time.
A newspaper source close to S7 said that the airline intends to get rid of neo family aircraft and is even going to request permission to export at least 22 aircraft abroad. The airline itself said that it did not apply for the export of aircraft, and refrained from answering other questions, Kommersant writes.
After the outbreak of a full-scale war in Ukraine, Western countries imposed numerous sanctions against Russia, in particular regarding the aviation industry. As a result, Russian civil aviation, cut off from the global aviation market, is faced with a shortage of foreign components, which have to be purchased in circumvention of sanctions.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.