Six months after the imposition of sanctions, Russian airlines have managed to resume the use of 201 foreign-made aircraft, including over 150 Boeing and Airbus aircraft, for performing flights overseas by removing them from the Bermuda aircraft registry and re-registering them in Russia.
According to the Kommersant newspaper, about 300 aircraft belonging to Russian airlines can now fly abroad in addition to 150 "Superjets," the CFTS portal reports.
Russia is thus claiming that it has bypassed the issue of double registration of aircraft. Almost all foreign airports available to Russian airlines (excluding airports in some Central Asian countries) do not accept airplanes with dual registration.
According to the newspaper, 1,238 out of the 1,289 aircraft in the Russian Federation have already received the Russian registration code (RA).
As reported earlier, the Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority (BCAA) suspended the airworthiness certificates of airplanes belonging to Russian airlines registered in Bermuda on 12 March. About 750 aircraft belonging to Russian companies were registered in Bermuda at that time.
A “Significant Safety Concern” was issued against Russia under the ICAO surveillance program on 15 June because of the double registration of the aircraft that were stolen from leasing companies and the use of these aircraft to perform flights in international airspace without airworthiness certificates.
"This is an unacceptable violation of international requirements and standards and poses an extremely great danger to people's lives and health," Ukraine’s Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov said at the time.
Turkey banned dual-registered Russian aircraft from flying in its airspace from 1 November.
