Why Aviation Sanctions Are SO Lethal - Russia & Iran
On July 15, 2025, five Boeing 777-200ERs that had been provisionally registered in Madagascar slipped into Iran after paperwork was allegedly altered and routing was masked through third countries. It was a headline about airplanes, but the real story was national power. When a country needs to borrow identity to acquire airliners, that is not just a procurement hack, it is a signal that connectivity, diplomacy, and trade will be rationed. Aviation sanctions do not only ground metal, they shrink a nation’s reach and complicate everyone else’s logistics. That is why this topic matters at first glance, not after a dozen footnotes.
Russia’s predicament
Russia is an aviation heavyweight, but not an aviation powerhouse. Before the Soviet Union collapsed, most of the aircraft it produced were military, so for the commercial market it lacked rigorous analysis of operating costs, market demand, and passenger comfort. After the invasion of Ukraine led to sanctions by the four major OEMs, all aircraft incorporating Western components were forced to halt production, and Russia’s civil aviation sector effectively ground to a halt. Russia has sought to substitute domestic parts, but since 2022 it has produced only a little over a dozen SSJ-100s. Some commercial aircrafts in service today, like the An-24/26 are nearing fifty years of service life.
Iran’s commercial fleet
Iran’s headline metrics are even starker. Iran Air has been reported with a total fleet of 37 aircrafts, of which just eight are active and 29 inactive, with an average age around 29 years and roughly 4,982 seats. This is insane as the average retirement age of mainline passenger jets typically clusters in the low-to-mid-20s (varying by type and usage). Other Iranian carriers show similarly high average ages. Decades of sanctions have produced a chronic, rather than acute, constraint: a structurally older fleet, many airframes parked or part-out candidates, and limited access to the approvals and permissions that underpin international networks.
How do operators in both markets cope?
If Russia can still counter sanctions through localization, even though it is struggling there remains a sliver of hope. Iran looks much more like it is trapped in a dead end. Iran relies more on gray channels and donor airframes, and, as the 777 episode shows, elaborate paperwork detours. These moves keep schedules alive, but they do not replace certified engine overhauls, approved modifications, and the documentation chain that regulators and insurers require.
Shrinking safety margins
The safety-risk pathway that must be discussed carefully. Sanctions remove access to OEM parts, manuals, service bulletin kits, and engineering support needed to comply with airworthiness directives. Just in July, an An-24 crashed in Russia, killing 48 people on-board.
The vicious spiral
Product quality will decline as sanctioned carriers struggle to access certified kits for cabin refreshes, Wi-Fi retrofits, and reliability upgrades, yielding noisier, older interiors and more delays and cancellations. By 2027 to 2028, Russia and Iran are likely to form two persistent, second tier aviation ecosystems that rely on older fleets and shorter networks, with domestic rules that do not translate abroad; even with sanction relief, rebuilding supply chains and data loops would take five to seven years. Russia’s role may be shift from builder to spoiler, using airspace pricing, selective closures, and administrative hurdles while occasional shocks in critical materials add friction to global programs that otherwise continue.
The global map will fragment, and there will be a two track aviation world. One track will align to FAA and EASA style traceability, digital provenance, and scaled reinsurance. The other will rely on local approvals, parallel imports, and bespoke insurance pools. Once airlines, MROs, and airports choose a lane, they will be locked in through documentation, software baselines, and insurer relationships. Switching lanes will be painful.
However, there will be winners around the edges. Istanbul, Doha, Dubai and possibly Delhi will keep taking share because they can bridge blocs without the political baggage and they can keep inducting new generation fleets. More venture meetings, conferences, and corporate footprints will occur in these connector hubs, fewer in Moscow or Tehran.
In terms of oil and logistics, there will not be a super cycle, there will be permanent friction. Detours, enforcement waves, and tanker sanctions will keep injecting noise into jet fuel and bunker demand. Airlines will bake this into fares. Shippers will bake this into contracts. Everyone will pay a small premium for complexity and oil price will go up.
A widening technology gap compounds the damage. New-generation fleets function as data platforms for predictive maintenance, fuel optimization, and automated compliance. If the country is stuck sweating older assets while peers induct NEOs, MAXs, and new-tech widebodies, the gap widens each season. This is like competing in the AI-era 2025 without any AI implementation. Thus, the spiral will become structural, not cyclical.
Bottom Line
Over time these effects become structural. Higher CASM, more AOG exposure, a duller product, and weaker data loops harden into a persistent competitiveness deficit. Networks shrink to what the fleet can reliably support, margins thin, and growth options narrow, thus strangling countries’ development.
