NSSA received the status of a single air ambulance supplier in 23 regions

According to the document, NSSA received the status of a single supplier in 23 regions. In 2025, powers were received in the republics of Kalmykia and Karelia, as well as in the Lipetsk region. NSSA received the opportunity to conclude a contract for two years without a tender in the republics of Buryatia, Yakutia, Dagestan, as well as in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug-Yugra, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Krasnoyarsk, Altai and Stavropol territories, Vladimir, Penza, Kaluga, Ryazan, Leningrad, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, Murmansk and Pskov regions. In 2026, the company received monopoly status in the Saratov and Smolensk regions.

The document outlines the most budget-intensive state order with a total volume of more than 5 billion rubles annually, which previously belonged to local airlines - in the Republic of Yakutia (ALROSA, Polar Airlines), Krasnoyarsk Krai (Aerogeo, JSC Naryan-Mar United Aviation Squadron), Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (Yamal) and Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug-Yugra (UTair - Helicopter Services).

The project to centralize air ambulance services was announced in November 2017 by Anatoly Serdyukov, head of the Rostec State Corporation's aviation cluster. In July 2018, Dmitry Medvedev, then Prime Minister, issued an order granting JSC NSSA the status of a single supplier for contracts for air ambulance services. In September 2018, Rostec State Corporation's subsidiaries — JSC Russian Helicopters, JSC NSSA, and Aviakapital-Service LLC — signed a contract for the supply of 104 Ansat helicopters and 46 Mi-8AMT helicopters with medical modules for the development of air ambulance centralization in Russia. The first vehicles were shipped to the regions in February 2019.

In December 2020, the Russian Government extended the powers of NSSA as the sole supplier of aviation services in the regions of Russia until the end of December 2021. As in the previous document, which granted the state corporation company a monopoly status in 2018-2019, NSSA had to fulfill at least 30% of the state order independently, and use the services of subcontractors to implement the rest.

In the fall of 2021, the Russian Ministry of Health was preparing a draft government order that was supposed to extend the mechanism of a single supplier of air ambulances for 2022-2023. However, since 2022, contractors for air ambulance needs have been selected on a competitive basis, and the Rostec structure has begun to cede the market to regional suppliers in some regions. NSSA regularly appeals violations in the selection of contractors by local authorities, appealing to the facts of unfair competition.

The NSSA expected that the status of a single supplier would be irrelevant after the introduction of an updated standard contract for the needs of air ambulances, which would establish uniform requirements for the quality of air ambulance services in Russia. The Ministry of Health developed it in March 2023, and it was planned that the document would replace the order in effect since May 2019. The department proposed that the new document would establish cases in which air ambulances could be used, designate the vessel's readiness dates, its markings, and compliance with current procedures for the provision of emergency medical care, thereby establishing the criteria for the quality of air ambulance services.

As a result, the Russian Government approved standard terms of contracts for the performance of air ambulance work at the end of 2024. The new standards included purchases made through the EIS, including with a single supplier. The regulation came into force on January 1, 2025.

In the same month, it became known that the head of the Russian Ministry of Health, Mikhail Murashko, sent an appeal to President Vladimir Putin with a request to re-appoint NSSA as the sole provider of air ambulance services. The company emphasized that the status of a single supplier of NSSA allowed to improve the situation in air ambulance services in Russia, in particular, the efficiency of services was increased (the flight time of helicopters was reduced by 15 minutes), the technical condition of the fleet was improved and comprehensive service was established.

According to SPARK-Interfax, 25% of NSSA JSC is owned by Rychag JSC, which is part of the Rostec State Corporation, and 75% by the Air Ambulance Development Fund, whose president is Ivan Yatsenko, founder of the Heli-Drive group of companies. In 2018–2025, NSSA concluded 2,135 government contracts for a total of 30.721 billion rubles, including in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Leningrad, Sverdlovsk, Novgorod regions, and the Republic of Karelia.

The basis of the NSSA fleet is the Mi-8AMT and Ansat helicopters manufactured by the Kazan Helicopter Plant (part of the Rostec State Corporation). The fleet includes 76 medical helicopters - 38 Ansats and 38 Mi-8. The service operated in 53 regions of the country, over six years, NSSA helicopters performed almost 40 thousand flights, and their crews saved more than 42 thousand patients.