Russia’s S7 Develops Engine Blade Capabilities

As Russian airlines continue to seek ways to maintain their foreign-made airliners under the Western sanctions that have banned the delivery of spares and components since early 2022, S7 Group has been working to cut out the middleman.

In 2023, the country’s second-largest airline acquired the Berdsk Electromechanical Plant near its base in Novosibirsk, Russia. The plant has now begun manufacturing fan blades to support S7’s fleet, local media reported citing an announcement by S7 Group Chairman Evgeny Yelin at the celebration of the plant’s 65^th anniversary on Sept. 30. S7 declined to provide specifics.

“But this is nothing compared to the complex blades we still have to produce—a gram of the metal they will be made from is five times more expensive than a gram of gold on the market,” Yelin said at the event.

The director of Novosibirsk-based Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Vasily Fomin was cited by Russian media in December 2023 as saying that the institute had developed a plasma spray coating technology to restore burned and cracked blades for Airbus and Boeing aircraft’s engines which will be applied at Berdsk Electromechanical Plant this year.

These are likely to be blades for CFM56 engines which equip more than half of S7’s in-service fleet. The carrier now operates 28 Airbus A320-family aircraft and 19 Boeing 737-800s.

“We headed off to a new direction: to maintain the airworthiness of the Western-made fleet,” Berdsk Electromechanical Plant CEO Vasily Yurchenko said at the event. The facility has delivered about 3,500 structural elements and components to S7 and other Russian carriers since 2022. According to Russia’s Air Operators Association, 89% of the country’s passengers in 2023 were carried aboard foreign-made aircraft.

The group’s MRO arm, S7 Technics, previously had an EASA Part 21G certificate to manufacture aircraft interior details. This approval has moved to the Russian authorities which allow S7 Technics to produce components for certain ATR, Airbus, Boeing, Cessna and Embraer aircraft.