Military aircraft left to rot after disbanding of unit

Published: 4/6/2000

“We have lost hope to get through the buraucratic barriers to acquire some of the grounded RusAF air lifters", says Aleksei Isaikin, general director of Volga-Dnepr airline. Volga-Dnepr, the largest commercial Ruslan user with a fleet of nine An-124-100s, made several unsuccessful attempts to acquire the aircraft and personnel of former Ulianovsk heavy lift regiment before it was disbanded more than a year ago. “We look with a great sorrow at what is happenning to the RusAF air lifter units – the airplanes are grounded and are getting older so that in many cases it is more economically viable to fund construction of a new airframe then to fund reconstruction of an ex-military aircraft into an air worthy condition", he said. Attempts are being made to acquire military cargo aircraft for commercial use by Igor Leiko, formerly head of Inkombank"s aviation department, who now heads up Rosavializing an aircraft leasing company. Isaikin said that if Leiko succeeds in getting hold of the redundant military aircraft then Volga-Dnepr might be interest in taking them. Isaikin in contrast to many of his more general cargo competitors, says that the military control no more than 6-8% of the cargo market and have little impact on the the stability of market. Despite having 100 cargo aircraft available and offering low prices, they have been unable to compete with the specialized cargo airlines. “We have technologies, highly skilled personnel, an established client base and a reputation, things that the military do not have", Isaikin said. He claimed that the extremely low charges offered by the military, sometimes two-three times lower than those of the airlines, not be enough even to maintain the planes in an air worthy condition and observe flight safety requirements. The only segment of the market being directly affected by the military is shuttle charter flights of consumer products and clothing on Il-76 aircraft to China and Siberia. Earlier this year Amirani Kurtanidze, general director of East Line, publicly expressed its unhappiness with “the fact that the RusAF sends its bombers to bomb in China" (in Russian “to bomb" also means “to earn money on taxi services without a licence"). Kurtanidze also pointed out that the charges offered by the military are not enough to meet the safety requirements for civil aviation a fact supported by the military"s poor safety record in commercial activites. The rest of the industry has also expressed its concern that the commercial future of many of the cargo carriers focussing on this route was being put at risk due to the military"s participation and opposed any further liberalisation of the rules governing their activities in the civilian sector.

Article ID: 1614