Aeroflot will remain under majority Russian government control until at least 2020 Oksana Tarasenko, the Director of the Corporate Governance Department in Russian Ministry of Economic Development, has told Bloomberg news.

In February this year, the carrier was touted as a possible candidate for privatization after Moscow announced plans to sell off various state-owned corporations and shareholdings in a bid to raise over RUB1 trillion roubles (USD12.8 billion). At the time, Russian oligarch and Vladimir Putin ally, Arkady Rotenberg, was linked to a 25% stake although he later denied any such claims.

The Russian government, through the Federal Agency for State Property Management (Rosimushchestvo), currently holds a controlling 51.17% stake in publicly-listed Aeroflot.