Russia Scrapped Plan To Assemble Tu-214 Planes
- 22.10.2025, 21:23
Third year in a row.
Russia's Kazan Aircraft Plant (KAZ) will produce only one Tu-214 airplane in 2025 instead of the planned three, sources Business Online in the aviation industry said. The failure of the figures was recorded for the third year in a row. Initially, the Comprehensive Civil Aviation Development Program (CCAP) envisioned that the plant would deliver three aircraft in 2023, seven in 2024, and ten in 2025 (later adjusted to three). In fact, since the invasion of Ukraine, KAZ has produced only one Tu-214. The airplane, laid down back in 2019, was handed over to the Ministry of Industry and Trade in May. Most likely, it will go to the credit of 2024 - then it was taken to the sky.
The reasons for the failure of the Tu-214 production plan include the shortage of workers, lack of capacity and lack of intra-industry cooperation. "On top of everything else, KAZ has learned how to work. It began to degrade in the early 90s," said one of the interlocutors of the publication. The airplane, which is to be released in October-November, is also not ready yet. The source said that the components for it were planned to be certified in December. "How things are today is a mystery for some reason. If they do not have time, they will try to buy imported 3-4 times more expensive than before, or they will take it off other machines," he said. In the end, the plane should be transferred to "Sogaz", but, according to the interlocutor of the publication, it is unlikely that this will happen soon.
According to KPGA, in 2026 Russia plans to produce five Tu-214. However, the program will be adjusted again by the end of this year, said the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Anton Alikhanov. In August, Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov said that from 2028-2029 KAZ will start producing 20 Tu-214s a year. According to the sources, this is unrealistic: there is no well-functioning production mechanism today, "the plant is completely under manual control", without management "no even the most trifling issue is solved", there is a lack of specialists and funding, and the technical base is outdated.
To realize a mass assembly line, the Tu-214 must be redesigned, because the entire cycle of construction from scratch takes at least 24 months, and with the backlog - 12-14, emphasize the interlocutors of the publication. "Now the wing and fuselage are docked for two months! What 20 airplanes! - one of them is perplexed. - I admit, it would be possible if there were three times as many people, but it is unrealistic to find so many." In his opinion, the potential maximum of the plant is 5-6 planes a year, and taking into account the current state of affairs it is "already a super task".
Simultaneously it is necessary to deal with the modernization of the airliner. "The Tu-214 is a good airplane, but it needs to be brought up to date, and it was 30 years ago and remains that way. So far no such work is visible," the source summarized.
The current version of the KPGA assumes that Russia will produce 113 Tu-214s by 2030. The airliner has 210 seats and belongs to the Tu-204/214 family of medium-haul passenger airplanes developed by Tupolev in the late 1980s.