Russian MRO providers gain strength

In the past few years the Russian MRO market has been on the rise, reflecting the general growth of the air transport market that continues since the start of the century. The growing air traffic triggered massive fleet renewals by Russian carriers, with foreign types accounting for 89% of the domestic passenger turnover in 2011.

The shift to Western-built airframes necessitates the establishment of a completely new MRO system. At present most of the foreign-made airliners operated in Russia are serviced abroad, but the local MRO sector is also developing. Changes in the sector started with the largest Russian airlines opening maintenance departments for servicing their fleets, but now some of these facilities are evolving into independent MRO providers.

The country has now only a few service centers certified to provide heavy maintenance on foreign-made airliners. These are in fact Aeroflot’s Aviation Technical Center, Vostok Technical Service and Engineering Holding.