The Boys on the (Air)bus

The biggest difference-maker aircraft in Ukraine’s war with Russia might not be the Soviet MiG-29 fighters donated by Poland or the American F-16s obtained from Norway and Denmark. 

Instead, it could be a single 16-year-old Airbus Corporate Jet.

Specifically, an ACJ319. Registration, UR-ABA, call sign Ukraine Air Enterprise. Since late last summer, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has been traversing the globe in it at a breakneck pace to appeal for arms and money. Between Sept. 15 and Dec. 14, 2023, Zelensky’s airplane logged 61 flights totaling 172 hours in the air. That included six trips to Washington, D.C., along with visits to Ottawa and Toronto, Canada; Granada, Spain; Bucharest, Romania; Brussels, Belgium; Berlin and Frankfurt, Germany; Malta; Paris; Shannon, Ireland; Cape Verde, Africa; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Brasilia, Brazil; Curacao; and Oslo, Norway.

Unlike the ostentatiously tricked-out jumbo jets used by some other heads of state in the region, Zelensky’s $25 million (used price) aircraft conveys—at least on its exterior—modesty and practicality, qualities essential for the image of a fundraiser making moral appeals.

Painted in white and gray and accented with sky-blue and pale-yellow stripes—the colors of the Ukrainian flag—It can transport 19 passengers and has a range of 6,100 nautical miles—up to 13 hours in the air, thanks to auxiliary fuel tanks fitted into the cargo hold that can carry 10,740 gallons of fuel. It features a built-in airstair, eliminating the need for special passenger ground-handling equipment. Tipping the scales at just over 166,400 pounds, the aircraft can use most commercial and military airports. Its runway requirement at maximum takeoff weight is 6,750 feet.

The gold-plated decor is a hangover from the country’s past presidents and Zelensky recently had the interior soft goods redone and the communications and cabin management systems upgraded at Lithuanian completion center J&C Aero and Estonian firm Magnetic MRO. During late 2022 and much of 2023, while the aircraft was being refurbished, Zelensky was transported abroad on six trips, some with multiple legs, by the air forces of the United States, United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and Denmark.

But having his airplane back doesn’t mean Zelensky can just take a quick 10-minute motorcade to the airport. Not safely, anyway. Kyiv-area airports have been the target of frequent military strikes—including the infamous February 2022 Battle of the Antonov Airport wherein Ukrainian forces repelled Russian helicopter assault units—and Ukrainian airspace is currently closed to civilian traffic. Zelensky’s Airbus is housed at a secure facility at Krakow (Poland) International Airport. It is dispatched to the Rzeszow in southeastern Poland, or the airfield at Swidnik to pick up the Ukrainian president as needed. Getting to or from Kyiv entails an 11- to 13-hour train ride. So, when Zelensky takes to the sky, it makes sense that he cobbles multiple stops together. Between Dec. 3 and 14, 2023, his airplane made 15 stops, logging 59 hours. In early January 2024, he was back in the air with a swing through the Baltic capitals followed by a trip to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. 

 A Favorite with Heads of State

This is why some heads of state and other frenetic globetrotters opt for converted airliners—even comparatively small ones such as the ACJ319—over large corporate jets. Based on the single-aisle Airbus A319, a shorter version of the ubiquitous A320, the ACJ319 has found a following as a head-of-state aircraft not only in Ukraine, but in Albania, Armenia, Bhutan, Brazil, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, the Ivory Coast, Malaysia, Thailand, Senegal, and Venezuela.

And that’s not just because of its roominess—the ACJ319 boasts a cabin that measures 79 feet long, more than 12 feet wide, and about seven-and-a-half feet tall, delivering 893 square feet of floor space and a cabin volume of 6,710 cubic feet. The space provides enough room for lavs with showers, master suites, media rooms, large conference groupings, dining areas, and gourmet galleys.

While the average corporate jet may fly several hundred hours annually, aircraft like the ACJ319 are designed to sustain 3,000 or more flight hours per year. Also, unlike traditional business jets, which have parts that need to be replaced at fixed flight-time or calendar intervals, most components on the ACJ319—as on most airliners—need to be replaced only when they wear out, a practice known as “on-condition” maintenance. This allows much of the routine maintenance work to be done in short bursts of time when the airplane is not scheduled to fly as opposed to putting it in the shop for weeks or even months. This is particularly critical when the operator does not have a backup aircraft.

Airbus began deliveries of an updated version of the ACJ319—the ACJ319neo—in 2019. (The suffix “neo” stands for “new engine option.”) Equipped with new, more fuel-efficient engines from either CFM or Pratt & Whitney and proprietary winglets Airbus calls “Sharklets,” the $100 million (nicely equipped) ACJ319neo extends its range to 6,750 nautical miles. The pressurization system delivers a 6,400-foot cabin at 41,000 feet. A flight-test aircraft flew a mission lasting 16 hours, 10 minutes in 2019, but for the record, Airbus calls it a 15-hour airplane. That enables direct flights from Los Angeles to Beijing or Moscow.

Although it is unlikely that Zelensky will be flying those routes anytime soon. 

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Mark Huber has reviewed aircraft for BJT since 2005.

2024 Airbus ACJ319neo at a Glance

Price: $100 million (typical, exact price depends on interior selected)

Engines: 2 CFM Leap-1A or Pratt & Whitney PW1100G

Crew: 3–5

Passengers: 19 (typical)

Range: 6,750 nm (with five auxiliary fuel tanks and 9,880 gallons of fuel)

Maximum takeoff weight: 170,417 lb

Maximum cruise altitude: 41,000 ft

Maximum cruising speed: 516 kt

Cabin: 79 ft (L), 12 ft, 2 in (W), 7 ft, 5 in (H)