MOSCOW, March 19. /TASS/. Russia’s Transport Ministry expects the law on wet-leased foreign aircraft (allowing airlines to lease aircraft from each other along with crews) to be passed in 2025, Minister Roman Starovoit told reporters.
"Yes, it is planned this year," he said when asked whether a corresponding law will be adopted in 2025.
The bill will be submitted for the first reading to the State Duma in April, he added.
Russian Deputy Transport Minister Vladimir Poteshkin said earlier that Russian air carriers might be allowed to wet-lease foreign aircraft in 2025. The agencies have already drafted amendments to the Aviation Code on the extension of the wet-lease mechanism to international routes.
Such a mechanism is already available for Russian airlines on domestic flights. Aeroflot has already leased three Airbus A330 wide-body jets with crews from iFly. The air carrier said then that at the first stage, flights with iFly aircraft would be performed between Moscow and Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Khabarovsk, and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.