S7 Airlines (S7), Russia’s second-largest carrier, has banned its first officers from performing landings at all but four airports across its network, in an unusual measure triggered by a series of hard landing incidents that have caused physical damage to aircraft. The restriction, issued by the airline’s Deputy General Director for Flight Operations, took effect on June 1, 2026 and is currently set to remain in force until October 1, 2026.
The directive, first reported by Russian aviation Telegram channel Aviatorschina and subsequently flagged by aeroTELEGRAPH, targets a problem that sits at the intersection of two pressures unique to Russian aviation in 2026: a degraded fleet that cannot easily absorb maintenance events, and a pilot corps whose proficiency is increasingly difficult to sustain under sanctions.
Under the new rules, first officers may only land aircraft at four stations — Moscow Domodedovo Airport (DME), Tolmachevo Airport (OVB) in Novosibirsk, Irkutsk International Airport (IKT) (except Runway 12), and Vladivostok International Airport (VVO). At every other airport on the S7 network, the captain must perform the landing.
What Is a Hard Landing and Why Does It Ground an Aircraft?
A hard landing, sometimes called a heavy landing, is defined by aviation safety authority SKYbrary as a landing in which the manufacturer’s touchdown limitation — expressed either as a rate of descent or as a g-loading value — has been exceeded. The standard hard landing threshold for commercial aircraft is a touchdown g-loading of 2.6, or a touchdown rate of descent exceeding 600 feet per minute.
After a hard landing, airlines are required to conduct a manufacturer-defined structural inspection before the aircraft can return to service. Inspectors look for specific damage types triggered by the excessive force of impact:
- Wrinkled wing skin or fuel leakage along riveted seams
- Spar web damage, including in landing gear attachment points
- Bulkhead stress fractures and nacelle attachment compromise
- Firewall skin deformation and wing and fuselage stringer damage
- Landing gear structural assessment, including hydraulic struts and brake systems
For an airline with constrained access to spare parts, each mandatory hard landing inspection carries an elevated risk of forcing an aircraft out of service for an extended period. S7 reportedly stated that the measure is intended to ensure “stable flight operations and reduce the risk of delays caused by additional maintenance inspections required after landings with elevated vertical loads.”
The Scope and Exemptions of S7’s First Officer Landing Ban
The ban covers the vast majority of S7’s domestic network. First officers may perform landings only at the four designated hub stations. At all other airports, the captain is required to handle the landing.
The restriction is not absolute. S7 has carved out exceptions for training and qualification scenarios. First officers undergoing line training with instructors, or completing aircraft qualification checks, may still perform landings as part of formally established training programmes.
At the same time, the airline has expanded its monitoring of landing performance. Pilot instructors have reportedly been instructed to conduct regular reviews of flight data monitoring information to identify trends associated with higher landing loads. When concerning patterns are detected, a more detailed analysis of previous flights may be ordered. Writing in One Mile at a Time, aviation commentator Ben Schlappig observed that he had difficulty making sense of the policy. He noted that while experience matters, it is rare for a landing to be hard enough to damage an aircraft, raising questions about whether the underlying issue is a lack of pilot experience or skill or the condition of the aircraft itself. He added that neither possibility would be reassuring.
Russia’s Fleet Crisis Behind the Policy
The broader context for S7’s unusual restriction is Russia’s aviation industry, which has been under severe stress since Western sanctions were imposed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Those sanctions cut Russian carriers off from new aircraft deliveries, certified spare parts, and direct manufacturer support from Boeing and Airbus.
S7 has been among the hardest-hit carriers. In October 2023, spare parts shortages reduced the number of operational Airbus aircraft in S7’s fleet to approximately 13 — or 20% of its Airbus fleet at the time. The situation worsened further when, in July 2024, the head of Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency confirmed that S7 would be forced to decommission its entire Airbus A320neo and A321neo fleet. The reason was an inability to service the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G engines that power those aircraft due to sanctions.
At the time of the first officer ban, roughly one-third of S7’s overall fleet is grounded because the aircraft can no longer fly. A hard landing inspection, which can remove a jet from service for days or longer, is therefore not merely an inconvenience — it is an operational crisis when parts to fix any discovered damage may be unavailable.
A Bloomberg investigation published in 2026 found that China had exported at least $961 million worth of aircraft parts to Russia from March 2022 to February 2026 — more than quadruple the amount from the same period before the invasion — as Russian carriers built grey-market supply chains through India, Turkey, the UAE, and Kazakhstan to keep their Western-built fleets airworthy.
S7’s Parallel Tightening of Cockpit Procedures
The first officer landing ban is not S7’s only recent move to tighten cockpit discipline. Earlier reports from Russia, noted by Russian tourism portal Tourdom and cited by Simple Flying, indicated that S7 had already tightened rules governing the use of personal electronic devices by flight crews. Pilots and cabin crew members faced increased restrictions on mobile phones and other devices during flight operations as part of broader efforts to strengthen safety standards and procedural discipline.
This pattern of incremental procedural tightening reflects a carrier trying to maintain operational reliability without access to the training infrastructure, technical support, and manufacturer resources that normally underpin safety management at a Western airline. The measures suggest S7’s management is aware of systemic vulnerabilities and is responding with procedural controls where material solutions are unavailable.
These actions also align with a broader Russian aviation strategy. A Bloomberg investigation found that S7 Technics — the airline’s maintenance arm — expanded its engine overhaul plant at Sheremetyevo Airport for Airbus A320s and Boeing 737s in 2025 and completed repairs on 100 engines in that year alone. According to Bloomberg, the number of aviation engineers in Russia has reportedly increased by at least 30% since 2022.
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