One source cited by Kommersant put the figures higher — up to 700 rubles for a domestic flight and up to 2,000 rubles for an international one. No decisions have been made on the size of the fee or how it would be collected: according to the newspaper's source in the government, work on the idea has only just begun.
The Transport Ministry could act as the operator of the fee. The ministry would direct part of the proceeds to leasing companies to cover the gap between the cost of building aircraft and the discounted price at which they are supplied to carriers. Another portion would go, in the initial stages, to airlines to compensate for the high cost of operating Russian aircraft compared with foreign ones, including fuel.
Based on the passenger traffic of Russian airlines in 2025, Kommersant estimates annual proceeds from the fee could reach 68–84 billion rubles. Meduza, citing Kommersant, gives a different estimate: 200–250 billion rubles in 2027–2030. According to one source, the need for the fee will disappear after 2030, when aircraft become cheaper.
The cost of the first MC-21 aircraft is estimated at 8.9–11 billion rubles. A comparable Airbus A320 costs 3.4–3.6 billion rubles, and a Boeing 737-800 costs 3.9–4 billion. The SJ-100 was estimated to cost 5.4 billion rubles, against a price of about 3 billion for an Embraer E190. The Tu-214 costs 8.9 billion rubles and the Il-114 4 billion.
Since September 2025, air passengers have already been charged a fee for the reconstruction of airfields — 150 rubles per person. It is to be indexed annually to the rate of inflation.
The Moscow Times notes that the program to develop the domestic aviation industry, which envisaged building a hundred new airliners to replace Boeings and Airbuses, has repeatedly been pushed back. It was initially planned that more than a thousand domestically produced aircraft would appear in the country by 2030. By 2026, airlines were to have received 42 SJ-100s, 18 MC-21s, 10 Il-114-300s, 20 Tu-214s and three Il-96-300s. Between 2022 and 2025, the civil aviation fleet grew by only 13 new aircraft — 12 SJ-100s and one Tu-214.
Andrei Kramarenko, a senior researcher at the Higher School of Economics Institute for Transport Economics, said the question of how to cover the losses of the initial period of operating new types of aircraft remains open. According to him, the state of the federal budget is "not exactly rosy," and airlines have almost no margin of safety left. The expert warned that as the cost of air tickets rises, demand will begin to fall quickly, so the "people's fee" will lead to a decline in passenger traffic, the revenue of carriers and airports, and tax receipts.