Rossiya

Is Rossiya safe?

On its own record, Rossiya has done well: the Aviation Safety Network lists no fatal accident and no written-off aircraft for it in the last 20 years, across a network that carried 12 million passengers in 2025. Its score of 55 is held down by what happened around it after 2022. Rossiya is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary, it is under a US export denial order, and its largest fleet, 78 Sukhoi Superjet 100s, runs on engines that Western suppliers no longer support. We score it above its parent Aeroflot, which had a fatal Superjet crash in 2019, and level with it on oversight.

What Rossiya is and when you fly it

Rossiya is Aeroflot Group's second network airline. It has its own operating certificate, AOC 2, and its own FV code, but it flies under Aeroflot's commercial management, so many Rossiya flights are sold with SU flight numbers. According to Aeroflot's 2025 annual report, it flew 146 routes that year, ran most of the Moscow to St Petersburg shuttle, served as the main airline at Krasnoyarsk and flew Superjets on international routes from Sochi. It made 111,500 flights, about 99,000 of them domestic.

The fleet at the end of 2025 was 136 aircraft:

The crash before the 20-year window

The worst accident in Rossiya's history happened before it took its current shape. On 22 August 2006, Pulkovo flight 612, a Tu-154M from Anapa to St Petersburg, tried to climb over an unusually tall line of thunderstorms near Donetsk. Severe turbulence pushed the jet up, its angle of attack rose to 46 degrees, and it fell into a deep stall from which the crew did not recover. All 170 people on board died. Pulkovo merged with Rossiya later that year.

That crash sits just outside our 20-year window, the same position as S7's 2006 Irkutsk crash, and we score the accident record the same way: 80, not the 95 and above our rubric keeps for long clean records with nothing near the edge. A Tu-154 written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary at St Petersburg in June 2008 after an uncontained engine failure on take-off is filed under Aeroflot in the ASN database, and we count it there.

The Superjet question

Rossiya is the world's largest Superjet operator. Meduza, citing Kommersant, counted about 160 Superjets in service in Russia in September 2026, and 78 of them belong to Rossiya. The aircraft has modern fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary controls, and Rossiya has flown it without a fatal accident.

The difficulty is the engine. The SaM146 was built by a French-Russian joint venture, and its Western half stopped support after 2022. The plan is to fit Russian PD-8 engines instead, which Kommersant put at 2.1 to 2.3 billion roubles per aircraft. In September 2026 Aeroflot's chief executive said that without a state subsidy, "the fleet at all companies operating the SSJ 100 will gradually be reduced."

The Boeing and Airbus jets face the same squeeze in a different form. US rules have required a licence for aircraft parts going to Russia since February 2022, reviewed under a policy of denial. The US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) put Rossiya under a temporary denial order on 20 May 2022 after it flew US-origin aircraft into Russia from Hurghada, Sharm el-Sheikh, Dubai and Sharjah without a licence. BIS has renewed the order five times, most recently on 4 November 2025, finding that Rossiya kept flying such aircraft to Turkey, Egypt, Central Asia and China. The order bars US-origin servicing except work that BIS authorises for safety of flight.

Oversight and what we cannot see

In April 2022 the European Commission put Rossiya on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary, on safety grounds, because Rosaviatsia had let Russian airlines fly foreign-owned aircraft "without a valid Certificate of Airworthiness" after Western lessors ended their leases. Rossiya was still on the list published on 9 June 2026. ICAO posted a Significant Safety Concern against Russia over the same issue on 15 June 2022, and Russia was still contesting it at the ICAO Assembly in 2025.

Rossiya is an IATA member, and Aeroflot's 2025 report lists IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary for it, but no outside audit since 2022 can be confirmed. Its parent Aeroflot makes the same claim and was not on IATA's IOSA registry on 28 October 2026, so we do not count IOSA for either. Oversight scores 20, the same as Aeroflot and Pobeda.

The incident record has a gap. AeroInside logged dozens of Rossiya events up to October 2021, almost all technical: engine shutdowns, gear that would not retract, cabin pressure faults. It shows nothing after that, so we searched Russian press and Rosaviatsia statements instead:

• Sochi to Krasnoyarsk, February 2023. A Boeing 737-800 lost cabin pressure and the oxygen masks dropped. It landed at Krasnoyarsk, and emergency services said five people were hurt by the pressure change.
• Saransk, 5 February 2024. A Superjet from Moscow with 93 people on board ran off the right side of the runway late in the landing roll and stopped about 10 metres off the paved surface, without damage, Rosaviatsia said.
• Vladivostok to Blagoveshchensk, 15 November 2025. Part of the right engine cowling on a Superjet came off in flight, and the crew diverted to Khabarovsk with 95 people on board. The transport prosecutor confirmed a technical fault.
• Arkhangelsk, 9 January 2026. A Superjet from St Petersburg landed on a runway covered with about 3 mm of wet snow, and its nose gear ran off the paved edge during the landing roll. No one was hurt, and the transport prosecutor opened an inquiry.
• Magadan, 22 January 2026. A 747-400 bound for Moscow with 353 people on board rejected its take-off after an engine failure. No one was hurt, and Rosaviatsia said the crew followed procedures.
• Moscow Sheremetyevo, 23 June 2026. Within about half an hour, two Superjets shut down their right SaM146 engines for high vibration, one taxiing out for Kazan and one after landing, and both were taken out of service.

No one was badly hurt in any of them. Still, two runway excursionsRunway excursionWhen an aircraft leaves the runway surface during take-off or landing, either off the end (an overrun) or off the side (a veer-off).More in the glossary and a cowling lost in flight in under three years are what our incidents factor counts, and the engine shutdowns fit the Superjet maintenance worry above.

Flying Rossiya: what to know

• Check who operates your SU flight. On the Moscow to St Petersburg shuttle and many flights from St Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk and Sochi, Rossiya flies the aircraft, often a Superjet.
• Expect winter delays. Arkhangelsk and Krasnoyarsk see long snow seasons, and runway clearing and de-icing take time.
• Allow slack in Moscow and St Petersburg. EASA's bulletin for Russian airspace west of 60° East, valid until January 2027, warns that air-defence activity against drones can close major airports at short notice.

How we scored it

The accident record (80) is clean for 20 years, with the 2006 Pulkovo crash just outside the window. Oversight (20) reflects the EU ban and ICAO's open concern on Russian airworthiness, with no confirmed IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit. The fleet (50) mixes modern Superjets and Airbus and Boeing narrow-bodies with old 747-400s, all without factory support, and the incident record (46) holds two Superjet runway excursionsRunway excursionWhen an aircraft leaves the runway surface during take-off or landing, either off the end (an overrun) or off the side (a veer-off).More in the glossary, a cowling lost in flight and a depressurisation since 2023. For a Russian comparison without the Superjet engine question, see Ural Airlines.