Russia’s MC-21-310 Completes Maiden Flight, Inching Toward Deliveries

First factory-built MC-21-310 flies 83 minutes over Siberia on Russian PD-14 engines — with 18 more jets already on the line and certification still unfinished.

The first serial-production Yakovlev MC-21-310 completed its maiden flight from the Irkutsk Aviation Plant on Monday, a milestone that pushes Russia’s sanctions-forced redesign of its narrow-body jet toward certification.

The aircraft, serial number MC.0014 and tail number 73362, flew for 1 hour and 23 minutes with a crew of four, according to United Aircraft Corporation, the state-controlled parent of Yakovlev. Aviation Week put the flight at 1 hour and 3 minutes.

The jet climbed to about 19,700 feet, or 6,000 meters, and reached an indicated airspeed of up to about 324 knots, or 600 kph, while crews checked stability and controllability in various configurations and verified the operation of domestically produced systems, the company said. Russia’s Ministry of Industry and Trade said all planned flight objectives were successfully completed.

“The first assembly line produced aircraft performed well, and the flight plan was completed in full,” test pilot Roman Taskayev said following the flight, according to The Moscow Times. Aviation Week rendered his post-flight remark as “The first production aircraft performed well, and the flight assignment was completed in full.”

Why the MC-21-310 maiden flight matters

Monday’s sortie was not the airplane’s first flight in the general sense. It was the first by an example built on the production line rather than assembled as a test article — the distinction that separates an engineering program from a manufacturing one.

Eighteen MC-21s are under construction at the Irkutsk plant, and United Aircraft says the facility has “confirmed its readiness” to build the first batch and to “begin work on subsequent orders,” in the words of company chief Vadim Badekha.

The airplane is the import-substituted variant of a program launched in 2009. The original MC-21-300, powered by Pratt & Whitney PW1400G engines and fitted with Western systems, earned Russian type certification in late 2021. Sanctions imposed after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine cut off those suppliers and forced a redesign around the Aviadvigatel PD-14 engine, Russian composite wings and domestic avionics.

For U.S. aerospace executives, the significance is less about a single flight than about what it suggests: that Russia, under sustained export controls, is edging toward an indigenous single-aisle competitor aimed at the same market segment as the Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus A320neo families. The range gap remains wide: United Aircraft cut the type’s published range to 3,830 kilometers in early 2026, roughly a quarter below the 5,100 kilometers once advertised, against more than 6,000 kilometers for current 737 MAX and A320neo variants. Secondary industry reporting has drawn comparisons with China’s COMAC C919, another program shaped by pressure to build domestic content.

Certification timelines don’t agree

The airplane still has no type certificate in its all-Russian configuration, and Russian officials have offered different timelines.

Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Gennady Abramenkov said roughly half of the certification flight-test program is complete and that deliveries would begin once certification is finished, according to Xinhua. The Moscow Times reported the same day that Rostec is aiming to complete certification by late 2026, with commercial flights months later.

That does not square with what Rostec chief executive Sergei Chemezov said in May, when he indicated certification and first deliveries had slipped at least to 2027, with about one-third of certification flights then finished, FlightGlobal reported. Neither figure has been reconciled publicly.

MC-21 chief designer Vitaly Naryshkin framed the production work as a hedge against that gap.

“Alongside the busy schedule of flight tests for the MC-21’s certification, we have already perfected key procedures for the final stages of production and flight-test station approval,” Naryshkin said. “This will ultimately allow us to minimize the time between certification and the start of MC-21 serial deliveries.”

The first batch is expected to go to Aeroflot under an existing contract for 18 aircraft, Xinhua reported. FlightGlobal had previously reported that Aeroflot Group’s Rossiya would be the first operator.

What the airplane is

Yakovlev lists a maximum range of 3,830 kilometers — about 2,070 nautical miles — for a two-class cabin seating 175, a maximum capacity of 211 seats, and a maximum takeoff weight of 85,000 kilograms — roughly 187,000 pounds. Maximum commercial load is 21,300 kilograms, about 47,000 pounds. Takeoff requires about 7,900 feet of runway, or 2,410 meters, and maximum cruise is Mach 0.82. Typical two-class layouts run 163 to 175 seats; one prototype, tail number 73054, was fitted with 16 business-class seats four abreast and 147 economy seats six abreast.

In June, the company said the import-substituted aircraft met key performance targets. “A range of over 3,800km was recorded with a payload of 175 passengers, ensuring a regulated fuel reserve,” Naryshkin said at the time — just over 2,000 nautical miles.

Two PD-14 engines in the 31,000-pound-thrust class power the airplane.

Background and open questions

President Vladimir Putin was shown this aircraft during an unannounced July 24 visit to the Irkutsk plant, where state television filmed him inspecting an MC-21 cabin interior. During the visit, the 18-aircraft build total was noted and the government approved additional production orders. Putin also pressed for more range from a proposed shortened variant, the MC-21-210, a roughly 140-seat derivative designers expect to reach at least 5,000 kilometers, or about 2,700 nautical miles.

Rosaviatsiya, Russia’s federal air transport agency, approved serial production of the MC-21 on March 28, 2025. Prototype 73055 became the first MC-21 to fly on PD-14 engines in December 2020, and returned to the air in April 2025 refitted with Russian avionics and systems; the first fully import-substituted airframe flew in October 2025, FlightGlobal reported. The first serial airframe moved to the flight-test department after final assembly in June. Rostec has said it aims for higher output by 2030, citing a rate of 36 MC-21s a year in May statements.

Order totals have shifted repeatedly. Historical data from ch-aviation, cited in secondary reporting, put firm orders at 384 — 198 for Aeroflot, 61 for Rossiya, 16 for Red Wings, 10 for IrAero and 99 undisclosed. A 2022 arrangement covering 210 aircraft for Aeroflot Group was later adjusted, and more recent reporting describes a firm contract for 18 alongside advanced talks on a second batch of 90. Aeroflot chief executive Sergei Alexandrovsky said in June that virtually all terms had been agreed, and that the carrier was prepared to take its MC-21 fleet to 200 aircraft. Pre-sanctions list-price references of roughly $72 million for the MC-21-200 and $91 million for the -300 date from before 2022 and no longer reflect the redesigned aircraft; United Aircraft has not published current pricing.

There is no public international certification path for the type. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency withdrew the program’s European certification process in March 2022, and neither EASA nor the Federal Aviation Administration has any announced role in the current campaign; the airplane is aimed at Russian and non-Western markets. No independent Western validation of the domestic systems’ performance is available, and as of Monday no public reaction to the flight from Aeroflot or other customers had been reported.

Seventeen years separate the program’s launch from Monday’s flight — a long span even by the standards of clean-sheet airliners, and one lengthened by the supply-chain rupture of 2022.