The airline "Ural Airlines" is preparing a large-scale program to extend the flight life of Airbus A320 aircraft - over 96,000 flight hours per aircraft. The project will be unprecedented for Russia in terms of the amount of technical work.
Engineers will conduct an in-depth study of the airframe with complete disassembly of components, check the condition of the load-bearing elements of the fuselage, wing and tail, perform defect detection, restoration and repair if necessary. After that, the structure will be assembled with an extension of the service life.
Andrey Patrakov, founder of the flight safety service RunAvia, explained that the regulated flight time of Airbus A32 is much lower.
Statements about the possibility of extending the life of Airbus A320 aircraft over 96 thousand flight hours are surprising, since the manufacturer himself determines this period at 90 thousand flight hours.
As of the end of 2025, the Ural Airlines fleet included four A319s, three A320neos, 22 A320ceos, eight A321neos and 12 A321ceos. The current state of the company's fleet is currently unknown.
Aviation expert Roman Gusarov explained that there are regulations for the maintenance of aircraft.
A-check and B-check are simple forms, but there are also complex ones, such as C-check and D-check, which require partial disassembly of the aircraft.
The press service of the carrier "First Technical" stated that they plan to purchase at least 10 of the latest MC-21-310 aircraft until 2030 under an operating lease.
However, the largest known customer of import-substituted MC-21 is Aeroflot with the delivery of about 200 aircraft until 2030. When exactly Ural Airlines will receive the aircraft is difficult to say.
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