Why Superjets are "not enough"

The Superjet 100 is a turbojet aircraft with a capacity of up to 99 passengers and a flight range of about 3000 km with a full cabin. It belongs to the class of regional aircraft, although I would still call it a small short-haul aircraft. And it is in this classification format that the market segment of its application and, accordingly, the demand for aircraft of this class becomes more or less clear.

If we look at the entire world market and the supply of aircraft of this class, we will see that in total, airlines in the world purchase from 70 to 120 similar aircraft per year from all manufacturers. At the same time, Boeing and Airbus have accelerated their production lines of large-capacity medium-haul aircraft to about 600 units per year each. In other words, for every ten B737 or A320 sold, there is only one Embraer E190, E195 or SSJ100 sold.

This means that the structure of global air transportation does not require a fleet of short-haul aircraft exceeding a tenth of the entire global fleet of short-medium-haul fleet. In fact, even less. And taking into account long-haul aircraft, "short-haul" have only a few percent of the market.

What do we have in Russia. Now the entire mainline fleet of Russian commercial airlines does not exceed a thousand units, including about 150 Superjets. That is, the share of SSJ100 in the fleet of Russian airlines is more than 15%. As you can see, according to this indicator, the share of short-haul turbojet aircraft in our country significantly exceeds the global average statistics.

Today, SSJ100s are operated in 9 Russian airlines, as well as in 7 state and departmental structures of Russia and abroad. In 2021, the number of passengers transported by Superjets exceeded 30 million. Well, where are the "few" Superjets? Or is it still not enough?

It’s good to have mustard in time, not after dinner

Have you ever tried eating soup with a teaspoon? Not even like that. First, scoop out the soup with this spoon from one plate to another, then into a third, and only then slurp it. This is how a Superjet flight to the Far East could look like – 100 passengers instead of three hundred and with two intermediate landings.

Russia is the largest country in the world with an uneven population density. At such a scale, it is impossible to build an air transportation network relying solely on the short-haul fleet. That is, having produced as many as we want short-haul Superjets, we will not be able to build a normal route network with their help.

The starting customer of the SSJ100 was our national carrier Aeroflot, having signed a contract for the supply of the first 30 Superjets back in 2005. At that time, many claimed that Aeroflot had a completely unsuitable route network for this type of aircraft and it was imposed on the airline by force.

Let me confirm and, at the same time, refute this thesis. The launch customer is very important for both Boeing and Airbus. For the European manufacturer, such is the German airline Lufthansa, which takes on the burden of lifting each new Airbus model into the sky and receives the entire "bonus package" of problems with the need to identify and cure "childhood diseases", of which European aircraft have quite a few.

So, who better than Aeroflot to lift a new generation Russian aircraft into the sky? This is exactly what was decided, and here the state, as the main shareholder of the airline, assumed this burden and responsibility, for which private business was not ready.

Another issue is the specifics of air transportation and the airline's route network. The Superjet was really poorly integrated into the business model of the national carrier. From this, along with the treatment of "childhood diseases", and low flight rates on these aircraft. But where to go?

The situation has changed dramatically with the beginning of the transfer of aircraft to Rossiya Airlines (part of the Aeroflot group). Firstly, this airline has a different business model and route network. And secondly, the decline in passenger traffic in many directions due to the pandemic has made it unprofitable to fly on half-empty Boeing and Airbus (90-100 instead of 180-200 passengers). But on a 90-100% filled Superjet, it turned out to be quite economically justified to fly.

The indicator of the 2021 level of serviceability of Superjets in "Rossiya" was 77%, which is quite a good result, especially taking into account the development of the operation of a new type of aircraft for itself. Currently, there are 66 SSJ100s in the Rossiya fleet and it is the largest SSJ100 operator. In 2021, Rossiya opened more than 55 new Superjet 100 flight destinations from Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sochi.

Azimut Airlines, which is based in the south of Russia, demonstrates excellent results. The air carrier flies exclusively on SSJ 100 and during the pandemic was among the record holders of the growth of traffic volumes - in 2021, compared to 2020, the number of passengers transported increased by 1.7 times. The average daily flight increased to 8.6 hours. The operational reliability of the fleet was 98.12%.

The growing demand for flights of a relatively small number of passengers over short distances and with a higher frequency of flights has led to an explosive interest in Superjets. There was even something like a queue. Airlines have raked out all the planes, even those that were not previously in demand in such numbers.

The airline Red Wings, which had previously flown on Airbases, began to actively build a route network based on Superjets at major regional hub airports. In 2021, the company opened about 60 new destinations on the SSJ 100. And, despite the development of a new type of aircraft for the company, Red Wings in 2021 was among the leaders in Russia in terms of punctuality of flights.

As they say, it’s good to have mustard in time, not after dinner. And the Superjet turned out to be very useful here. Of course, we are talking about a limited segment of the air transportation market. But, still…

«Superjets-phobia»

How often have we heard the words "I will never fly on a Superjet". Such a negative attitude towards the aircraft is caused, in my opinion, by two main factors: the first is media reports about various kinds of failures in the first years of operation and the cure of childhood diseases; the second is "our hands are growing from the wrong place and by definition we cannot do something modern, reliable and safe."

Alas, I'm afraid to disappoint skeptics and Westerners, but ... On the first question, I dare to say the following: almost all failures at the initial stage of operation of the aircraft were associated with the need to modify those "always reliable" Western components made by hands "growing from that place".

Despite this, I do not agree with those who are now criticizing the head developer of the aircraft for using these most imported components. I would like to remind you that the project started in the first half of the noughties, and our industry at that time was in such ruins that it was unable to produce equipment and systems of the necessary properties and qualities that meet modern certification requirements.

For this reason, it was decided to implement the project in broad international cooperation. This has become one of the key factors in the overall feasibility of the project. I want to remind you that the project of the Chinese RRJ aircraft, which started in the same period, was implemented with a creak in a much longer time and it is noticeably inferior to the Superjet in many parameters. And the Japanese MRJ project from Mitsubishi failed altogether and was closed after almost 20 years since the beginning of the development of the aircraft ($ 10 billion was spent).

All of the above is also the answer to the second statement about where someone's hands grow from. Our aircraft has been transporting passengers for 11 years, childhood illnesses are a thing of the past, serviceability and raid are not inferior to the indicators of foreign equipment.

Is it possible to do more?

Commercial operation of the Superjet began in April 2011, that is exactly 11 years ago. In total, Aeroflot ordered 120 aircraft under three contracts, plus 30 - an option. The aircraft are delivered according to the delivery schedule until 2026. At the moment, 67 aircraft have been transferred to the Aeroflot group.

Could Aeroflot have ordered more planes? Of course, he could. The main shareholder (the state) can make any decision and instruct the top management of his company to implement any task. But could Aeroflot digest more Superjets? Alas, no.

At the beginning of 2022, a total of 200 SSJ100 units were built, of which 162 are in operation.

Could our aviation industry produce more Superjets? Undoubtedly, yes. Please note that 36 aircraft were assembled in 2014, and only 27 were handed over to customers. After that, the production rate was reduced due to the fact that the market, for the reasons described above, could not digest such a number of aircraft of this class. In fact, the enterprise in Komsomolsk-on-Amur is able to produce significantly more – 46 units per year.

And all the attempts of the current hurrah-patriots to find out why these planes were produced little and who is to blame for it – in favor of the poor. For some reason, this leaves out the fact that it will be possible to say "Superjet is our everything" only after full import substitution of all foreign components, including the engine.

Work on the development of the SSJ 100 Rus aircraft started back in 2018, and they are being implemented according to the approved schedule. It will not be possible to significantly speed up this process. You can stimulate and train an athlete as much as you like, but he will not be able to win twice as fast as man is given by nature. The deadlines for solving complex technical problems have the same insurmountable limitations.

This is especially true for the creation of such a technically complex device as an aircraft engine. Usually, when creating a new engine, we are talking about a period of 8-10 years. Due to the fact that in the past decade, the United Engine Corporation has gone through a stage of technological modernization (and this continue at the present time), the timing of the creation of the domestic PD-8 engine for the Superjet has been reduced by almost half.

Thus, in the perspective of 2024-25, we may well get an aircraft in a new look, the pace of serial production of which will be able to satisfy almost any airline requests for short-haul turbojet aircraft.