This is probably going to be just the tip of the iceberg. There was already articles around cannibalisation of planes so that you can service and repair an ever dwindling number of aircraft.
If it keeps going on for another year or two it's not going to be good
This literally happens everyday, everywhere and to every airline. Sometimes even between airlines.
I’ve personally been responsible for a part getting pulled off another engine from another airline and swapped for one that got its electrical connector damaged so the engine would ship on time.
There is a whole industry of buyers and sellers of 2nd hand aircraft parts.
That doesn't mean this is the same situation. In examples you are likely thinking of, this is happening because of the immediate need for parts or as cost savings, etc. Russia is doing it because they are blocked from primary and secondary markets. For many of their aircraft in the country there are no replacement parts coming except what falls off of the truck in China and gets passed along. So their supply chain is slowly approaching zero until their aircraft have to simply be grounded (or they quit invading neighboring countries and the embargoes are lifted.)
Sure, but those types of things are stopgap measures that work in a normal, unsanctioned market. Like, they need a part now, but there's none available in the maintenance hangar (or whatever), and it would take a few days to order one, so they ask another airline at the same airport to float/sell them the part. Once the ordered part arrives, they're back to their usual number of parts.
In this case, Aeroflot just cannot get more parts, period. The market for new parts is completely closed to them right now due to sanctions, and secondhand parts will only get them so far. We're talking about brakes here, which wear out to uselessness, so I doubt there's even much (if any) secondhand market for those. Once all the "Boeing brake pads" wear out and run out in Russia, that's it. They can't get new ones without someone violating sanctions. Well, unless they manage to bum spares from countries like China that aren't sanctioning them, or unless someone local can manufacture them to the correct specs.
Regardless, these other options get more and more expensive as time goes on.
> or unless someone local can manufacture them to the correct specs
This will likely happen except for the correct specs part. Sure, it will be manufactured to fit, but it likely won’t be able to be made to the same standard as the official Boeing part.
The impact of this could be absolutely nothing, or maybe Aeroflot planes just end up on runway excursions more often. It could also lead to catastrophic failure and separation of the landing gear bogie causing all sorts of additional trouble.
Aeroflot was widely regarded as worst international airline (on par with say Nepal airlines but for very different reasons) way before any invasion started. Typical russian mentality and alcoholism is simply not a good match to highly structured and regulated environment of very complex machinery.
Everybody I know tried hard when travelling from Europe to Asia to avoid using them, even when they were often the cheapest.
I know absolutely. However they can order spare parts. AFAIK, Russia is now cut off. Unless they can smuggle some from Kazakhstan, China or somewhere else it will be SOL for those airframes at one point.
They will set up one or more shell companies in a non-suspect country but with less regulation oversight. Think Africa, like Morocco.
Then buy second hand planes, engines parts etc from dealers that may only check 1 level deep or be willing to risk getting sanctioned themselves.
Then strip them and send them to their overhaul locations.
Certain Colombian groups used to do it in the 80s when they needed their private jets overhauled but found their organization was sanctioned. surprised picachu
There’s a huge industry of leasing jet engines to avoid downtime since most shop time is spent waiting for engine repair. The lessors hot swap engines and avoid downtime for an entire jet just so an engine can get serviced. This is a perfectly normal practice in the aviation industry.
Leasing "thrust", not engines; there's a distinction that might not be obvious at first.
Engines are leased at different thrust ratings depending on what the airline needs. Mostly fly out of long runway airports in fairly cool, low altitude (ie dense air) locales lots of thin, svelte passengers who have little luggage, on fairly short trips with not much fuel needed onboard? You can get away with a lot less thrust than an airline that caters to overweight tourists flying out of Las Vegas with luggage loaded to the gills with trinkets.
The lease usually includes everything needed to make the plane go VROOM when the pilot pushes the loud lever, including live monitoring of telemetry for performance and repair issues; a plane might get scheduled for repair, with parts routed and mechanic time scheduled, mid-air...
It's a perfectly normal practice...that ground to a halt in Russia with economic sanctions, and was why a bunch of people in the airline industry sat up and took notice when the sanctions started rolling in. In theory leases could be up a few days after sanctions started and the plane would be dead on the tarmac (or maybe they get a minimum amount of thrust, enough to fly the plane mostly unladen. Not sure. I don't know the industry well enough.)
There were stories that Russian airlines were looking to, or expected to, hire hackers to hack into the engine FADEC units to re-enable them when the leases were up / change their thrust levels, etc. What could possibly go wrong with hiring people to hack your plane's FADEC units...
This is on top of all the airframe leasing, of course. Lot of people expected planes that were leased by Russian airlines to suddenly fly only domestic routes, or routes to countries with friendly governments bribed by Russian oil, grain, and loans who wouldn't allow a repo team to do their thing.
You're telling me that there are devices built into civilian airplanes that are able to disable or hobble the engines based on the whims of _business agreements_? It seems beyond reason that a pilot would be denied an engine's full design thrust, especially in a contingency that requires as much performance as possible (terrain avoidance, wind shear, aerodynamic surface failures, engine flameouts, on-ground emergencies after takeoff decision speed, go-arounds, etc...) Can you expand a bit on how this system works? Do you know what prevents a mistyped lease expiry date from causing dangerous incidents?
Thrust ratings are a thing. They’re “programmed” using a dummy plug. Literally an electrical connector that has a cap on it and inside that cap is a bunch of wires that loop back and bridge pins. The pin combo represents a thrust rating.
The plug is set and screwed into the fadec at manufacture and then updated after each service based on the test cell run.
Overhaul is often defined in terms of thrust ratings. Customers engine comes in, dyno’d (test cell) current thrust level is established. A plan is put to the customer based on their requirements, work is then done, dyno’d again and then signed off with the new plug installed.
Why would you do this? When engines are made, from automotive engines through to sophisticated jet engines, they all have a rated power number but minor variations in tolerances etc add up to make the actual power number.
In a jet engine, you have two or more on a plane, if one engine is slightly more powerful the plane will naturally try to fly in circles.
I think the parent comment gets a lot of things confused, for example you don’t rent a thrust rating.
You rent an engine, at a thrust rating and will need to return it at that same thrust rating after you’re done (ie a mandatory overhaul of the engine and scoped to a particular rating).
Often the engines are owned by leasing companies or banks. Have a look next time you fly, there may just be a “Bank of Honk Kong” sticker on the side of your engine.
That makes sense and is much closer to how I understood things. Parent comment made it sound to me like there is a whole subsystem dedicated to plane DRM.
