Komiaviatrans (KMA, Syktyvkar) re-registered all five active E145LIs it operates into the Russian aircraft registry on December 6, the federal air transport regulator (Rosaviatsia) said in a statement.

All five Embraer regional jets were previously registered in Bermuda as VQ-BWL (msn 14500804), VQ-BWM (msn 14500823), VQ-BWO (msn 14500815), VQ-BWP (msn 145781), and VQ-BWU (msn 145701). All of them are leased from Gaztechleasing.

Komiaviatrans also owns a sixth E145 which is stored at Alverca and has never been operated by the Russian carrier yet.

The Russian authorities have long been trying to convince local airlines to re-register their aircraft in the national registry. The majority of Russia-based commercial aircraft are currently registered in Bermuda. According to the ch-aviation fleets module, these are currently 709 aircraft operated by 29 carriers, including aircraft operated by Aeroflot Group, S7 Airlines, Ural Airlines, UTair, and others. A further thirty-six aircraft are registered in Ireland.

"From the point of view of international law, these aircraft cannot be considered part of Russian aviation. Thus, 95% of the aircraft operated by Russian airlines have foreign nationality, mainly the United Kingdom of Great Britain (Bermuda) and Ireland," Rosaviatsia said.

Earlier this year, Azur Air (ZF, Krasnoyarsk Yemelyanovo) reached an agreement with Rosaviatsia which will see it re-registering aircraft in Russia.