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When a government imposes sanctions on a country, the aviation industry tends to feel the pressure faster than almost any other sector. Airlines depend on a continuous supply of parts, maintenance services, insurance coverage, and leasing agreements, most of which flow through networks dominated by American and European companies. Cut off access to those networks, and an airline can go from a functioning operation to a grounded fleet in a matter of weeks.
The four case studies in this article span six decades of aviation sanctions, from Cuba’s embargo dating back to 1962 to Belarus’s overnight loss of its European network following a single forced diversion in 2021. Between them, they cover fleet seizures, parts-smuggling operations spanning four continents, fleets kept flying with cannibalized components, and national carriers reduced to two operational aircraft. Each case differs in its cause and detail, but the underlying pattern is consistent: when the supply chains on which modern aviation depends are cut off, the consequences are severe and compound over time.
How Aviation Sanctions Actually Work
When governments impose sanctions on a country, the aviation industry does not just lose access to new aircraft. It loses access to almost everything required to keep existing aircraft flying. The restrictions typically cut off spare parts, maintenance services, leasing agreements, insurance coverage, and the software updates that modern aircraft depend on for airworthiness. For airlines operating Western-built jets, that combination can ground a fleet faster than the loss of any single aircraft.
The reach of US sanctions in aviation is particularly broad due to a rule that covers any aircraft containing ten percent or more US-origin parts or components. Since virtually every Airbus and Boeing aircraft meets that threshold, the rule effectively bars sanctioned countries from acquiring new jets from either manufacturer, regardless of where the aircraft is built or where the transaction takes place. It also means that third-country carriers and leasing companies risk exposure if they facilitate a transfer involving a sanctioned entity. That extraterritorial reach is what makes US aviation sanctions difficult to work around, even for countries with access to non-Western suppliers.
Leasing is where the pressure lands most immediately. The majority of commercial aircraft worldwide are leased rather than owned outright, and Western lessors, primarily based in Ireland and the United States, dominate the market. When sanctions require those lessors to terminate contracts, airlines can lose large portions of their fleets almost overnight. Parts supply chains collapse next, as manufacturers and maintenance providers are prohibited from servicing aircraft operated by sanctioned entities. What follows is a collection of older fleets, grounded aircraft, improvised supply chains, and a network that shrinks to wherever sanctions do not reach.
Iran: Forty Years Of Improvisation
Iran’s aviation industry has been living under US sanctions longer than almost any other country, and the results are visible in the numbers. Iran Air operates a fleet with an average age of nearly 30 years, including some aircraft that entered service in the 1980s and are still flying. Out of approximately 330 Iranian-registered aircraft, only around 180 are operational at any given time. For a country of 90 million people, the gap between available capacity and demand is substantial, showing up in airfares that are among the highest relative to income of any domestic market in the world.
The brief exception came in 2015, when the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action temporarily suspended nuclear-related sanctions. Iran Air signed a $25 billion deal with Airbus for 118 aircraft and a separate agreement with Boeing for 80 jets worth approximately $17 billion. Only a handful were ever delivered before the United States withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018, canceling all outstanding orders and ending the modernization program before it began.
Mahan Air, the country’s largest private carrier with documented ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has adopted a more aggressive approach to working around restrictions. In July 2025, the airline acquired five Boeing 777-200ERs in a year-long operation involving front companies across four continents. The aircraft, formerly operated by Singapore Airlines and stored in Australia, passed through China, Indonesia, and Cambodia before arriving in Iran. The US Treasury sanctioned two of the five jets in April 2026 after they entered revenue service on routes to Guangzhou.
The pattern is consistent across decades of Iranian aviation history. Sanctions have made normal fleet acquisition through official channels essentially impossible and have significantly degraded the country’s overall air transport capacity. They have not stopped sanctioned carriers from flying, but they have forced Iran’s aviation industry into a permanent state of improvisation.
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Russia: The Largest Fleet Seizure In Aviation History
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Western sanctions required all aircraft lessors to terminate contracts with Russian airlines within 30 days. The scale of what followed had no precedent in commercial aviation history. Russian airlines at the time operated over 600 Western-built jets, 85 percent of which were owned by foreign leasing companies and valued at approximately $12.4 billion. Russia refused to return them, legislated a ban on aircraft exports, and re-registered the seized fleet under Russian authority.
AerCap alone lost 113 aircraft and took a $2.7 billion pre-tax charge. Most lessors eventually settled through insurance claims and negotiated buyouts, with Aeroflot agreeing to purchase 228 aircraft from lessors as part of structured arrangements. The legal disputes that followed are still being resolved.
With spare parts in short supply, Russian airlines began cannibalizing grounded aircraft to keep the rest of their fleets airworthy. Safety incidents involving Russian aircraft more than doubled between 2022 and 2023. The Russian-built replacements intended to fill the long-term gap, including the Irkut MC-21 and updated Sukhoi Superjet, have faced repeated production delays, leaving airlines dependent on a Western fleet they can no longer legally maintain through official channels.
Aeroflot’s international network has contracted sharply, with routes avoiding sanctioned airspace now limited primarily to Asia and the Middle East. The airline remains operational through substantial government subsidies, but its fleet is aging without access to the manufacturer support it was designed to rely on.
Belarus: Grounded By A Single Flight
Belavia’s problems trace back to a single afternoon in May 2021. On the 23rd, Belarusian authorities issued a bomb threat warning to a Ryanair flight traveling from Athens to Vilnius, forcing it to divert to Minsk, where dissident journalist Raman Pratasevich and his partner were arrested. The incident triggered immediate international condemnation. The European Union banned all Belarusian airlines from its airspace, the UK suspended Belavia’s operating permit, and the United States and Canada followed with coordinated sanctions against Belarusian officials and entities. Overnight, Belavia lost access to the European routes that had formed the core of its international network.
The operational consequences compounded quickly. Belavia operated a fleet of 
Boeing and Embraer jets, and sanctions meant both manufacturers stopped providing servicing and spare parts. Component costs tripled according to the airline’s own CEO. The US added Belavia directly to its Specially Designated Nationals list in August 2023, grounding the American-built portion of its fleet entirely. The airline pivoted to former Soviet states and the Middle East, the only markets where it could still operate without restriction.
The situation began easing in late 2025. The US lifted Belavia’s SDN designation in November, following Belarus’s release of political prisoners at Trump’s request. The airline has since opened discussions with Boeing about fleet expansion and is operating three Airbus A330-200 widebodies on longer-haul routes. European sanctions remain in place, however, meaning Belavia’s pre-2021 network is still effectively out of reach.
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Cuba: The Oldest Sanctions In The Sky
Cubana de Aviación’s situation is the most extreme on this list, and also the longest-running. When the United States broke diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 and imposed a full embargo in 1962, Cubana lost access to its American-built fleet and any future aircraft containing US-origin parts. The airline had been operating Douglas and Lockheed aircraft and had just placed orders for Boeing 707s. Those orders were canceled, and Cubana turned to the Soviet Union for replacements, becoming the first airline in the Americas to operate Soviet-built jets.
Six decades later, the consequences of that pivot are fully visible. As of early 2025, Cubana had just two operational aircraft in the entire country. When a component fails, the airline must source the part from abroad, often waiting months for delivery. The fleet, which once included Ilyushin Il-96ss and Tupolev Tu-204s, sits largely grounded. Sanctions on Russian exports imposed after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine created an additional layer of difficulty, since Russia had become Cubana’s primary source of both aircraft and maintenance support. An IL-96-300 that went to Belarus for maintenance in 2023 did not return until late 2024 after more than a year of repairs.
The airline now operates a handful of domestic routes on the two aircraft it has available, with international connectivity provided almost entirely by foreign carriers on wet-lease arrangements. Several European airlines, including Condor and Edelweiss, have cut Cuba service entirely, citing unreliable fuel supply and deteriorating ground infrastructure. Cubana’s own management has publicly stated it hopes to fly with its own aircraft again someday. For a national carrier founded in 1929, that is a notable place to have arrived.
