Aviacapital to pursue lawsuit against Airbus for four undelivered Aeroflot A350s

Aviacapital Service (AKS), a Russian leasing firm is planning to continue to pursue a lawsuit against Airbus, despite Airbus returning almost $200 million in advance to Aeroflot for four undelivered A350s. The lessor is seeking the return of a further $5.1 million in advance payments handed to Airbus for future aircraft deliveries.

Aviacapital Service has filed the suit against Airbus with the Moscow Arbitration Court on December 13th seeking the restitution of $5.1 million paid in advance to Airbus.

"The returned advances were intended for Aeroflot. As for the lawsuit, it does not apply to the relationship between Aeroflot and Airbus, but only to the relationship between AKS and Airbus, and therefore the lawsuit will not be withdrawn,” AKS said.

As per a report by Izvestia, Airbus returned about $199 million to Aeroflot related to four A350s, although western sanctions forbid the companies from doing business with Russian-owned companies the refund was allowed to go through.

While speaking to the journalists at St. Petersburg International Economic Forum Sergei Alexandrovsky, CEO, Aeroflot said: "Last year we carried out such work - quite intense and interesting - with Airbus. As a result, we managed to agree on all the conditions, and in December 2022 we received a refund from Airbus in the amount of $199 million for four A350s. Oddly enough, despite the sanctions restrictions, we were able to agree."

In 2007, Aeroflot placed an order for up to 22 A350-900s, of which seven were delivered between 2020 and 2022. The airline has re-registered each A350 in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.  The airline is also sending its planes to Iran to undergo maintenance.

Meanwhile, Aeroflot is planning to reduce the number of dual-registered foreign aircraft in its fleet as part of a wider plan to buy out the aircraft from lessors. The carrier reportedly has over 160 aircraft with dual registrations, the majority of which are under the Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority (BCAA). If Aeroflot is able to reduce the number of dual-registered planes in its fleet, it would open up more international flight opportunities for the carrier.