Aeroflot Dumps Il-86 on November 15

Aeroflot has announced that it is taking its fleet of 9 Ilyushin-86 Soviet era wide bodies out of service for reasons of fuel economy. The big four engined widebodies will no doubt find other uses in the freight and or charter business but they're on borrowed time in revenue service.

The Russian aviation industry has fallen on hard times. Although its design and engineering work has been world class, putting a commercial product on the market that can compete for sales in the real world and then going out and producing it in quantity has escaped them.

There is, of course, a neighbor with a burnin' desire to get involved in the aviation business in a big way, and links to the Russian aerospace industry that go back a long way.

Sino-Russian aircraft manufacturing: coming to an airport near you?

Stay tuned.