FALLOUT: Punished By Western Sanctions, Russia’s Airlines Are Showing More Cracks And More Problems.
On January 9, a 4-year-old Airbus A320 operated by the Russian airline S7 was flying from the Siberian city of Bratsk to Moscow when it encountered a problem: Its toilet system malfunctioned. The flight was forced to divert to the city of Kazan for an unscheduled landing.
Four days earlier, a Red Wings airline passenger jet flying from Kazan to Yekaterinburg also was forced to turn around and returned to its departure airport after its landing gear failed to retract.
Two months before that, a top transport official in the Pacific coast region of Primorye sent a letter to the ministry for the development of the Far East and Arctic in Moscow: We need new passenger planes because our current planes won’t be able to fly anymore after this year.
The reason, according to the letter obtained by the news outlet RBK? The plane’s Canadian-built Pratt & Whitney engines couldn’t be repaired due to Western sanctions.
Russian fuels could instead find buyers in Singapore and Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, then head to larger Asian markets from there, but not the big ones, he added.
Russian products could also flow to West Africa and Latin America, while Europe will likely start sourcing more of its diesel from the US and Asia in a “round of musical chairs,” Katona said.
Inconvenienced travelers and distorted commodities markets aren’t going to stop a war.