The commercial aviation industry is characterized by a continuous cycle of modernization and decommissioning, with dozens of passenger aircraft reaching the end of their economic lifespan each year and being scrapped or mothballed. However, a case unprecedented in recent aviation history is unfolding at Toluca International Airport and other airfields in Mexico.
A fleet of Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 regional jets has been sitting unused in the open for years. These aircraft, once intended to form the logistical backbone of an expanding airline, are now the central element in a complex web of corporate miscalculations, insolvency-related blockages, and international sanctions. The story of these planes exemplifies the systemic risks airlines face when their fleet planning and associated technological supply chains directly collide with geopolitical conflicts and international fault lines.
Interjet's risky entry into Russian aviation technology
To understand the current situation of the aircraft in Toluca, Mexico, it's necessary to look at the strategic decisions made in 2011. At that time, the Mexican airline Interjet was thriving as the country's third-largest airline in terms of passenger numbers. To systematically expand its domestic route network and feed its hubs, management was looking for a modern regional jet with a capacity of 75 to 100 seats. While the established Western aircraft manufacturers Embraer from Brazil and Bombardier from Canada were considered the logical favorites – as both had extensive spare parts and maintenance networks across the Americas – Interjet surprisingly opted to sign a purchase agreement for 30 Sukhoi Superjet 100s. This made the airline the first and only operator of this Russian-made aircraft type in the entire Americas.
From a purely business perspective, the deal appeared to offer considerable advantages at the time. The purchase price of the Superjet was around 15 percent lower than that of comparable Western competitor models. Interjet's management emphasized that the capital costs for ten brand-new Superjets were roughly equivalent to the down payments that would have been required for a single Airbus A320 family aircraft. Furthermore, the SSJ100 was a completely new development, conceived with the intensive involvement of Western technology companies. Key components such as the avionics came from Thales, while the Powerjet SaM146 engine was manufactured in a French-Russian joint venture between Safran Aircraft Engines and NPO Saturn. The aircraft was certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and seemed ideally suited for international operation in American airspace. By 2013, Interjet had taken delivery of the first aircraft and ultimately integrated 22 of the 30 ordered jets into active flight operations on routes within Mexico as well as on short-haul routes to the United States, Cuba and Central America.
Structural shortage of spare parts and the cannibalization of the fleet before the pandemic
The ambitious project began to falter shortly after the aircraft entered service. As early as January 2018, just four and a half years after the first scheduled flights, it became public knowledge that several Interjet Superjets had been grounded for months due to a lack of essential spare parts. This revealed a fundamental structural problem: operating a Russian-made aircraft type in a region without local maintenance, repair, and overhaul networks proved logistically almost impossible. Transport routes for components from Russia were long, and bureaucratic hurdles in customs further delayed operations.
The aircraft manufacturer, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company, partially denied responsibility for the delays, blaming Interjet's payment arrears to suppliers and the engine manufacturer for the delivery stoppages. Since no other operator in North and South America used this aircraft type, there were no stockpiles or spare engines on the entire continent that Interjet could have accessed in an emergency. To maintain flight operations for the remaining aircraft, the airline's maintenance teams began in 2018 to remove airworthy components from already decommissioned Superjets and install them in active aircraft. This systematic cannibalization resulted in 15 of the 22 delivered aircraft being permanently stored or grounded by mid-2019, as funds were also lacking for engine overhauls. At the beginning of 2020, depending on seasonal demand, only four to seven Superjets remained in active service, while the rest of the fleet deteriorated in Toluca.
Financial collapse and the legal blockage caused by labor disputes
Interjet's financial difficulties had worsened over the years, independent of its fleet situation. Between 2017 and the first quarter of 2019, the company's net loss totaled over US$211 million. Operational problems and the unreliability of the Superjet fleet proved to be the primary drivers of these losses, as the aircraft failed to accumulate the projected flight hours needed to cover fixed operating costs. When the global Covid-19 pandemic caused air travel to collapse in the spring of 2020, Western leasing companies seized all 66 Airbus A320 family aircraft from Interjet. This left the company with only its own physical assets: precisely those unreliable Russian regional jets, which it had been trying unsuccessfully to sell or return to Russia for years.
On December 11, 2020, Interjet finally ceased operations after several temporary suspensions due to unpaid fuel bills. By that time, the airline had completely lost its market share both domestically and internationally. What followed immediately after the cessation of operations continues to block the disposal of the aircraft. Former employees of the airline, who had not received their salaries for months, went on an indefinite strike in January 2021 and occupied the company's remaining assets, including the airport check-in counters in Mexico City and the parked Superjet fleet in Toluca. Under Mexican labor law, this gave the workers' demands direct legal recourse against the physical aircraft. The planned liquidation of the bankrupt assets transformed into a complex legal battle between creditors, unions, and the actual owners of the aircraft—a Russian state-backed banking consortium led by the development bank VEB.
The impact of international sanctions on aviation infrastructure
Despite the legal hurdles in Mexico, plans existed in early 2022 by the Russian VEB Bank to have several of the aircraft parked in Toluca repaired locally by a specialized maintenance center, with the intention of subsequently selling them to other airlines in Latin America, such as in Peru, Panama, or Argentina. However, these plans were abruptly thwarted in February 2022 by the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine and the subsequent comprehensive sanctions imposed by the Western community of nations. The Powerjet joint venture, responsible for the production and technical support of the SaM146 engines, ceased all cooperation with Russian entities, causing the global supply of spare parts for this engine type to collapse. Simultaneously, Italian authorities froze millions of euros in assets belonging to Superjet International, the Venice-based company responsible for the distribution and technical support of the aircraft in Western markets.
For the 22 jets stranded in Mexico, these measures meant the end of their technological development. Obtaining certified components was now impossible. Because the aircraft were owned by a sanctioned Russian state bank, Western companies were prohibited from providing any services or logistical support for these assets. Furthermore, in June 2023, the Russian manufacturer consortium Irkut, which had acquired Sukhoi's civil aviation divisions, officially deemed the repatriation of the aircraft to Russia technically and legally unfeasible and shelved the idea for good.
Insolvency proceedings and the realization of the remaining components
In April 2023, the Mexican District Court for Commercial Insolvency officially declared Interjet's operating company bankrupt and ordered the liquidation of its remaining assets by a court-appointed administrator. The company's total debts are estimated at between 1,4 billion and 40 billion Mexican pesos, depending on whether tax debts and outstanding employee claims are included. Given these sums, the tangible value of the superjets represents only a fraction of the required assets.
Since the aircraft can no longer be sold or exported as complete systems, the salvage efforts are focused on the selective sale of individual components through commercial auctions in Mexico. Engine parts, landing gear assemblies, and electronic instruments are being dismantled for sale on the secondary market. This is particularly ironic, as Russian airlines were suffering from an acute shortage of precisely these components during the same period due to Western sanctions, as they were struggling to keep their own domestic Superjet fleets airborne. However, international sanctions regulations prevent any legal transfer of these components, removed in Mexico, back to their country of origin, Russia.
The physical condition of the remaining airframes is deteriorating steadily. Toluca Airport is situated at an altitude of 2.680 meters above sea level, exposing the decommissioned structures to intense UV radiation, extreme temperature fluctuations, and seasonal rainfall. After more than five years of unprotected outdoor storage and prior dismantling, any economically viable restoration of these aircraft to airworthiness is completely impossible. The remaining aluminum and composite airframes have lost all value for commercial aviation and can, at best, serve as a source of scrap material.
Lessons for the global aviation industry and the management of geopolitical risks
The fate of the Interjet fleet provides the international aviation industry with important insights into the risks of modern fleet strategies. For a long time, the integration of international supply chains—such as combining a Russian airframe with French engine components and Western electronics—was considered a prime example of successful global cooperation, intended to enable the introduction of cost-effective aircraft to the world market. However, the case of the Superjet in Mexico demonstrates that precisely this high dependence on multinational suppliers backfires in the event of geopolitical crises. As soon as political relations between the manufacturing countries break down, the entire support system for an aircraft type collapses.
For airlines worldwide, this case illustrates that when selecting a new aircraft type, the pure acquisition and fuel costs should not be the only factors considered. The long-term availability of a politically independent and geographically diversified maintenance and spare parts network is equally crucial for an airline's economic success. The 22 aircraft in Toluca remain as silent monuments to an era in which global aviation markets seemed to be growing closer together before political borders closed once again.