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I am talking about the pre-2014 situation of the Russian Federation, not sanction-ridden Russia.

The world's passenger jet market has only two players: Boeing and Airbus.

The Russian Federation has the capability to build large passenger jets. For example, after decades of trial, the Ilyushin Il-96's design has been perfected.

So, why couldn't Russia cut into the world's large passenger jet market?

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    This does not appear to be about politics but about the economics of the airlines.
    – Joe W
    Commented Oct 30, 2022 at 22:08
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    Russia has a GDP smaller than italy It simply cannot compete with western behemoths like boeing and airbus.
    – SurpriseDog
    Commented Oct 31, 2022 at 3:08
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    @SurpriseDog, ...but (slightly) larger than Brazil. Yet Embraer is quite competitive in its niche. Even small countries can be powerhouses in some areas, it's not all about GDP.
    – Zeus
    Commented Oct 31, 2022 at 7:17
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    I've heard that Embraer is well-integrated with Boeing. Maybe the plan was the same with Superjet and European makers but for many reasons it did not pan out.
    – alamar
    Commented Oct 31, 2022 at 7:44
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    possible duplicate aviation.stackexchange.com/q/23735/1467
    – Federico
    Commented Oct 31, 2022 at 12:42

3 Answers 3

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First, in the specific case of the Il-96, four-engine passenger jets are pretty much dead because they have lower fuel efficiency and higher maintenance costs compared to twin-engine passenger jets.

As of October 30, 2022, there are all of three pending/backlogged orders for Boeing 747-8s and zero pending/backlogged orders for Airbus A380s

Even Illuyshin apparently is studying a two-engine model of the Il-96:

To reduce fuel consumption and maintenance costs, Ilyushin is studying a twin-engined development, powered by over 340 kN (76,000 lbf) Aviadvigatel PD-35s developed by 2025 from the PD-14, or foreign powerplants.

In comparison, there are 411 pending/backlogged orders for Boeing 777s, 484 pending/backlogged orders for Boeing 787s, and 420 pending backlogged/pending orders for Airbus A350s.

Second, technology. Russian technology - especially engine technology - is significantly behind US and European technology. Note the "powered by over 340 kN (76,000 lbf) Aviadvigatel PD-35s developed by 2025 from the PD-14, or foreign powerplants" in the above quote. Russian engines such as the Aviadvigatel PD-14 seem to have maximum thrusts in the 30,000 lbf/150 kN range. The GE-90 engines on 777s have been able to produce 80,000 lbf/350+ kN of thrust for almost 30 years, and can now reach 115,000 lbf/500+ kN of thrust.

Russian aviation is hoping they'll be able to almost triple the thrust of their engines. To get where GE was thirty years ago.

Third, economies of scale likely play a role. Russian passenger jet production has historically been minuscule compared to Airbus and Boeing. Only 175 or so Sukhoi Superjet 100s have been built, compared to literally thousands of Bombardier and Embraer regional jets.

To get some idea of the scale involved, there are over 4,000 pending/backlogged orders for Boeing 737 MAX jets and over 6,000 pending/backlogged orders for Airbus A320neo-family jets.

So if you need to order a few hundred passenger planes, you can pick from Airbus or Boeing for larger jets, or Bombardier or Embraer for smaller planes. And all of them have a demonstrated history of delivering, along with a large backlog of orders that help guarantee their continued production of whatever planes you order.

Russia doesn't have that demonstrated history, and doesn't have that backlog of orders helping to guarantee you'll get your planes. If you order 50 twin-engine Il-96s, you're hoping Russia will deliver them. But if you order 50 777s or A350s, you not only have much better guarantees of delivery based on history, there's also the knowledge that should Airbus or Boeing fail to deliver, your airline won't be the only one inconvenienced or worse.

So in a competitive market, ordering from Airbus or Boeing comes with both greater guarantees and effectively zero risk, at least when compared to the risk other airlines are operating under. No, it's not zero risk, but since just about every other airline is ordering from those builders, the comparative risk is lower. Going alone with a large Russian order would be very risky. If Boeing or Airbus fails, everyone's damaged. If you're the only one ordering from Russia and they fail, you are damaged.

And nevermind current political issues with trying to buy Russian-built passenger jets...

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    A good answer, but it would be better if it mentioned issues with long-term support. Buying a plane is one thing, keeping it running - entirely another. Airbus, Boeing and Embraer have the advantage of already having infrastructure to maintain their planes basically everywhere they might need to fly to. Russian companies tried to somewhat bypass that by collaborating with European companies (for example, with Snecma on SSJ-100), until that initiative fell victim to "current political issues" you mentioned.
    – Danila Smirnov
    Commented Oct 31, 2022 at 3:24
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    Also, I don't think comparing PD-14 to GE-90 is valid. PD-14 is developed for a narrow-body passenger jets, which usually use weaker engines - for comparison with modern competitors, both late-generation Boeing 737-MAX and Airbus 320neo use LEAP engines (result o a collaboration between Snecma and GE, by the way) with max thrust of ~140 kN. Russia does have a deficiency in larger engines for civilian aircraft, though, as these engines were mostly developed and produced in Ukraine before the dissolution of USSR.
    – Danila Smirnov
    Commented Oct 31, 2022 at 3:39
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Soviet Union did not care much about fuel efficiency of its airplanes. Therefore, Soviet jets turned out uncompetitive in the early 00s as fuel prices recovered and mostly taken out of airlines' fleets.

Russia can produce an Il-96 but it can't sell this airplane commercially.

The new post-Soviet airplane crop (An-148, Superjet and MC-21) is ridden by all kinds of malaisies, with Superjet seeing reasonable local success by having 100-150 planes in the air. It's not obvious it will continue to be produced, and even serviced, in the current sanctions regime.

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  • Soviet Union did not care much about fuel efficiency of its airplanes. - I presume this did not apply to military airplanes?
    – whoisit
    Commented Oct 30, 2022 at 21:15
  • It does, but military planes in general are much less constrained economically by fuel consumption than passenger jets. Fighter jet is lucky to spend 10h/mo in the air whereas passenger jet spends 10h+/day, worst case. So all military jets are likely equally wasteful.
    – alamar
    Commented Oct 30, 2022 at 21:45
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    And even if they are wasteful, militaries can be more willing to eat those costs vs. a company that needs to be profitable
    – fyrepenguin
    Commented Oct 30, 2022 at 22:01
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    The "can't sell this airplane commercially" needs more emphasis. This is the actual problem. Later designs were reasonably competitive in terms of fuel efficiency (cf. Tu-204 vs its closest contemporary counterpart B757). But selling even a perfect product is much more than that: aviation demands reliable and worldwide supply of spare parts and service. This "reliability" has always been an issue with Russia, from purely technical problems to delivery issues. SSJ was deliberately designed with so many Western components to reduce such risks (and now, ironically, it bites them).
    – Zeus
    Commented Oct 31, 2022 at 0:34
  • @whoisit Militaries in general care a lot less about fuel efficiency than civil operators, especially for specialized aircraft (i.e. things not based around cargo planes). And in fact, Russia is still quite competitive in the market for military tactical aircraft.
    – cpast
    Commented Oct 31, 2022 at 2:54
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When Lithuanian Airlines (now defunct) were transitioning from Tu 134 to Boeing 737 in 1998, they said the Russian airliners are very reliable but not economical. This coincides with other answers. Looks like fuel economy is a difficult thing to achieve.

This is a technical reason. I do not think it has anything to do with politics.

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