The Tu-204 aircraft project never went into mass production due to the position of the former Russian authorities, who relied on the purchase of aircraft from abroad. This was stated by the former chief designer of the aircraft and its modifications, Oleg Alasheev.
According to him, there was a deliberate policy of leadership at various levels against the Tu-204. At some point, the Superjet project appeared, for which they had not even built a single production line, and money was also required for the MC-21.
Work on the Tu-204 was mainly carried out due to the energy of the participants in the cooperation. But you can't break through a wall with your forehead. And now the project for the serial production of the Tu-214 is slowing down.
Alasheev noted that he had crossed paths with former Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar several times. His main argument was the increased fuel consumption of the Tu-204 compared to foreign counterparts.
He directly said that the aviation industry is long and expensive and that he had already agreed with Boeing. At all meetings, I proved that this was not possible, that the Americans would cut off our oxygen in two seconds. That's what happened. Thank God, it's still in a more or less mild form, but we still fly through the deck today. By the way, everyone who came after Gaidar behaved in exactly the same way to a greater or lesser extent.
To date, a total of 91 Tu-204s have been produced, including the Tu-204-200 modification, of which only a few remain in operation.
Earlier www1.ru reported that the manufacturer of the MC-21 and SJ-100 "Yakovlev" suffered a loss of 4 billion rubles in 9 months of 2025.