IT is on the rise: more than 60 airports have switched to Russian software
More than 60 airports and dozens of airlines, including foreign ones, have implemented Russian software, the office of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko told Izvestia. In particular, airport check-in desks, baggage search services, and airline ticket reservations operate on the domestic "stuffing". In order to increase the independence of Russian civil aviation from external factors, it is extremely important for domestic airlines to have sovereign software, Russian Transport Minister Andrei Nikitin told Izvestia. Earlier, Vladimir Putin called on the Cabinet of Ministers to achieve the transition of 80% of organizations in key industries to Russian software products by 2030. The Izvestia article describes how successfully Russia is moving towards technological sovereignty.
How airports are switching to Russian software
The aviation industry is massively switching to domestic software products, the office of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko told Izvestia.
"More than 60 airports and dozens of airlines, including foreign ones, have implemented Russian software developed within the framework of industrial competence centers," they said. — The solutions were among the completed particularly significant projects of the "first" wave and replaced some foreign IT systems to support the activities of airports and airlines. These include a system for centralized check—in desk management and a baggage search service.
In order to increase the independence of Russian civil aviation from external factors, it is extremely important for domestic airlines to have sovereign software that allows them to support and support numerous production processes in air transport, Russian Transport Minister Andrei Nikitin told Izvestia.
— The mechanism of industrial competence centers has allowed aviation market players to switch from foreign software to effective domestic IT solutions almost seamlessly and unnoticeably for citizens. Work on the creation and implementation of Russian specialized aviation software continues successfully. The creation of promising information systems for solving specific industry tasks is on the agenda," the head of the department added.
Currently, there is an active import substitution of platforms for access to registration systems. The introduction of domestic technical means of ensuring transport security is also on the agenda, Pavel Nikitchuk, head of the Digital Transformation Department of the Federal Air Transport Agency, said in an interview with Izvestia.
At airports, Russian software is used in services that every Russian knows. For example, the CUTE software package, developed by order of Sheremetyevo Airport, is used in the operation of check-in counters and boarding gates. The domestic equivalent has replaced the information exchange system of the Swiss provider SITA, which is called "aviation SWIFT".
Most of the SITA services were disabled during 2022, which required early work on their domestic counterpart. Today, the CUTE complex is already used in 23 Russian and one foreign airports. At the moment, more than 28 million passengers have been able to register for flights with its help.
Another Russian system, BAGS Search, helps you search for lost luggage. It allows you to register things in a single digital environment, which has already been joined by 14 airlines, including four foreign carriers from the CIS countries, as well as 62 airports. Thanks to this service, more than 400 thousand passengers were able to quickly find their luggage.
Another domestic product allows Russians to book flights, buy additional services, including on-board meals, seat comfort, and baggage transportation. It was developed by order of Aeroflot and replaced the imported Sabre software package. This new system is also used by Rossiya and Pobeda airlines.
Finally, Russia has developed a secure communication channel system that allows airlines, airports, and government agencies to exchange messages even without network access. 63 Russian and 6 foreign airports, more than 50 air carriers, 33 of which are foreign, have joined the service.
The successful transition to domestic software is one of the key challenges for airports in Russia. So, at Sheremetyevo, at the moment, most of the critical infrastructure has been transferred to Russian software, Dmitry Ilyin, Deputy General Director for IT at MASH, told Izvestia.
"It remains to implement import substitution of software and hardware complexes that have no domestic analogues, but this issue is also being resolved through interaction with Russian equipment manufacturers," he said.
At the same time, a significant part of airports and airlines still continue to use imported software due to the fact that it is impossible to quickly switch to domestic analogues, Denis Kuskov, CEO of the TelecomDaily information and analytical agency, told Izvestia.
"As the situation with the hacking of Aeroflot, which happened this summer, showed, the company uses a fairly large amount of imported software, which may also need to be replaced with Russian software," the expert said.
Russia is actively working on flight safety, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on September 17 at a meeting with the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency Dmitry Yadrov. The head of the cabinet noted that by 2030, the government plans to put 75 airports across the country in order, as well as build new air terminals. The airport in Krasnodar resumed its work. It has not operated flights since February 2022 for security reasons. The first flight in 3.5 years landed at Krasnodar Airport on September 17, 2025. The flight on the route Moscow (Sheremetyevo) — Krasnodar was performed by Aeroflot.
How Russia is moving towards technological sovereignty
Earlier, Vladimir Putin instructed the government to achieve the transition of 80% of Russian organizations in key industries to using domestic software products by 2030.
"It is necessary to achieve technological sovereignty in cross—cutting areas that ensure the sustainability of the entire economy of the country — these are means of production and machine tools, robotics, all types of transport, unmanned, aviation, marine and other systems, data economics, new materials and chemistry," Putin said in his annual address to the Federal Assembly in 2024.
The President's instructions, including the development of Russian software, are carried out by the Industrial Competence Centers (ICCS). They bring together the largest companies and IT developers in order to ensure the transition of key industries to domestic software.
The task of the ITCC is to find Russian industries with a high dependence on foreign IT products and develop domestic analogues. The government continues to work on improving this mechanism, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko told Izvestia.
— Industrial competence centers are a new approach to the interaction of key industries, developers of IT solutions and government agencies. As a result of the collective study, we get solutions that are interesting to implement not only for the customer company, but also for other industry participants. Our task is to identify and close the "white spots", the segments in which the development of mature Russian solutions is required," he said.
With the beginning of its own and the departure of imported foreign companies. Denis Kuskov believes that the problem of developing their own software is acute in Russia. First of all, it is worth working on this to ensure security and protect industries from fraudulent attacks.
So, one of the examples of domestic development can be considered the national messenger MAX, which is expected to work closely with government electronic services, including Public Services. In April 2025, it became known that in large Russian banks, the level of software import substitution on critical infrastructure averaged about 90%.
Earlier, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin noted that the process of introducing Russian software is underway in almost all industries. At the same time, not all companies were able to abandon foreign software and switch to domestic ones. This is a long process, and the Russian Federation is still at the beginning of the road, Denis Kuskov summed up.
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