The European Commission has added Russia's iFly Airlines (F7, Moscow Vnukovo) to its air safety black list for knowingly operating aircraft without valid certificates of airworthiness.
"I want to underline that this decision is not another sanction against Russia; it has been taken solely on the basis of technical and safety grounds," the European Union Commissioner for Transport Adina Vălean said.
The ch-aviation fleets module shows iFly Airlines operates four A330-200s and three A330-300s. The -200s remain registered in Ireland, which has revoked all certificates of airworthiness of Russian-operated aircraft in the wake of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the resulting sanctions on Russia. The four aircraft were all grounded as of early March and currently are in storage at Moscow Vnukovo (three) and Shanghai Pudong (one) airports. In turn, the -300s are currently the backbone of iFly's fleet. All three have been illegally re-registered from Ireland to Russia in recent weeks. One of the A330-300s operates as a passenger aircraft on routes to Hurghada and Sharm el Sheikh, while the other two were deployed as makeshift freighters to Zhengzhou through late May. They are currently inactive as China no longer allows expropriated aircraft operated by Russian carriers into its airspace.
iFly joins another 20 Russian airlines that were blacklisted by the European Commission in April 2022.
Airlines on the EU black list are not allowed to land in the EU or use the bloc's airspace. In the case of Russian airlines, the blacklisting has no practical effect at this moment, as all Russian airlines are banned from flying over the EU due to sanctions imposed for the invasion of Ukraine.
