The Greatest Airplane Stealing in History

Companies that rent planes, like. Aercap and Avolon are losing hope that they will retake their aircraft that had been rented to Russian airlines and that are now in Russia. Due to Western sanctions against Russia following Ukraine's invasion, these companies cut contracts with Russian airlines. Even though the announcement of finalisation of the contracts became known about a month ago, Russian air companies have not yet returned more than 500 planes worth about ten billion dollars.

“I'm afraid we will witness the largest aircraft theft in the history of commercial civil aviation,” said Volodymyr Bilotkach, professor of Air Traffic Management at the Institute of Technology in Singapore. EU Commission Director-General for Transport Henrik Hololei also complained that the aircraft found in Russia are “brought to legal owners”.

Serious violation of Convention on International Civil Aviation

After imposing sanctions, Russia approved an accelerated procedure to prevent aircraft from being removed from service. The planes in question are registered in Bermuda and Ireland, and the authorities in these countries have suspended their air safety certificates and therefore are not allowed to be raised.

To preserve the necessary security certificates, chartered aircraft were simply reregistered in Russia. But according to international regulations, double registration is not allowed. Henrik Hololei said this is a serious violation of the Chicago Convention for International Civil Aviation. According to Russian government data, more than half of the 515 chartered aircraft have already been registered to Russian authorities.

Most chartered aircraft are used for internal flights to Russia. The EU Aviation Agency Eurocontrol now tracks any aircraft that leaves Russia and, in co-operation with authorities in countries where the aircraft land, seizes them. According to a report by the Russian news agency Interfax last week, 78 such aircraft that had flown abroad were confiscated.