Following the news that all Bermudan registered aircraft operating in Russia have had their Certificate of Airworthiness (CofA) withdrawn, Cirium have looked at the number of Bermuda registered aircraft.
According to an analysis by Cirium, the aviation analytics company Around 75% of the Russian airline fleet was registered in Bermuda at 1 March 2022 (that’s 745 aircraft from a total of 981).
Since 1 March 2022 only 14 of these aircraft have been registered with other authorities – ten in Russia, 2 in US (on repossession) and 2 in Azerbaijan, plus one other aircraft which was deregistered from the Bermudan register by its operating lessor owner in early March as part of a failed repossession attempt and which subsequently flew back to Russia and continues to operate within the domestic network, with no new known registration.
Bermuda is used as a ‘flag of convenience’ for both tax and technical reasons.
Following the communication from the Bermuda authorities on Saturday which effectively suspended the CofA of the remaining 730 aircraft at midnight on 12 March, our tracking data confirms that some 303 of these aircraft were detected in flight.
From 745 Bermudan registered aircraft in Russia as of 1 March, only 15 which have changed registration as of today – 10 to RA (Russia), one unknown (suspect it is still flying as Bermuda), 2 to N (US; on repossession), 2 to 4K (Azerbaijan).
