Aeroflot reaches agreement with Irish lessor on rights to 18 aircraft
MOSCOW. Sept 6 (Interfax) - Aeroflot has reached an agreement with Irish lessor AerCap on the rights to 18 aircraft and five aircraft engines operated by the group's companies.
"According to the agreement, AerCap dropped its claims against the Russian parties both under insurance policies issued by Russian insurance companies and under leasing agreements with PJSC Aeroflot and JSC Rossiya Airlines. Ownership of the aircraft and engines was transferred to the insurance company LLC NSK Insurance Company, which paid the amount in settlement," an Aeroflot spokesperson told reporters.
Talks on a settlement with other foreign aircraft lessors are ongoing, the spokesperson said.
Aeroflot is in talks with foreign lessors on insurance settlements for 61 leased aircraft, the airline's CEO, Sergei Alexandrovsky said earlier. Ultimately, these airliners will become the property of a specially created leasing company in Russia, which is financing their acquisition with money from the National Welfare Fund, and Aeroflot will make lease payments to this company, he said. This will make it possible to remove the aircraft from foreign registries, which will, in turn, make it possible to use them for international flights without the risk of them being seized.
The Aeroflot group fleet, which unites the airline of the same name, Pobeda and Rossiya, consisted of 348 aircraft at the end of August, according to the company's website. According to Alexandrovsky, just 102 aircraft are in the Russian register, and 18 aircraft, previously under financial leasing not prohibited by sanctions, have been bought from foreign lessors.
A source told Interfax earlier that NLK-Finance had become the new lessor of these 18 aircraft. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, this company was established in December last year by the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Civil Airports (Airfields) Administration, which is subordinate to the Federal Air Transport Agency, and LLC NSK Insurance Company, established by the unitary enterprise not long before that.