Aeroflot bought sanctioned Boeing 777 aircrafts from VEB Bank
2023.01.11 10:06
Aeroflot bought sanctioned Boeing 777 aircrafts from VEB Bank
Budrigannews.com – Ten Boeings were sold by an Irish lessor (NYSE:) Two people who are familiar with the situation told Reuters that a local subsidiary of the state-controlled Russian development bank VEB supplied 777-300ER aircraft to Russia’s flagship carrier Aeroflot last year.
On December 30, state-controlled Aeroflot announced that it had acquired ten long-haul Boeing 777-300ER aircraft it had previously leased from an unidentified Irish company.
According to the airline, Aeroflot has leased the aircraft since 2013 and 2014. According to the carrier, the lease was a finance lease, which means that the lessee receives ownership rights to the asset after paying the full amount, as opposed to a more typical arrangement in which ownership remains with the lessor.
VEB Group’s Aeroflot and VEB-Leasing did not immediately respond to inquiries for comments.
Aeroflot was operating 22 Boeing 777s in March of last year, 10 of which it owned and 10 of which it leased from Russian and Chinese lessors, according to FlightRadar24’s list of Russian aircraft and the Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority (BCAA).
In order to maintain its fleet of foreign-made aircraft, Aeroflot stated in December that it would continue to work on additional aircraft buyouts.
The West responded to Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine with unprecedented sanctions prohibiting Western businesses from collaborating with Russian airlines, the majority of which operate Western passenger jets, and forcing lessors to terminate contracts with Russian airlines.
Moscow re-registered the aircraft in Russia to safeguard domestic flights and refused to let some of them leave, stranding nearly $10 billion worth of aircraft in Russia.
Many of the jets are still being used by Russian airlines, but some of them have had trouble locating replacement parts.
According to documents and sources, Russian airlines have held exploratory talks with at least one major Western leasing firm about using state funds to purchase some of the more than 400 stranded aircraft in Russia.
