Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot will run into huge losses after missing a deadline in an interim agreement with Boeing on delivery of 22 long-haul jets, a major Aeroflot shareholder warned on Tuesday.

Aeroflot needs modern, more cost-effective planes to upgrade its ageing fleet of mostly Russian-made aircraft and maintain its big network of long-range flights.

Russia's National Reserve Corporation (NRC), which is Aeroflot's largest private investor with a 30 percent stake, had agreed with Boeing it would get a discount of USD$10 million to USD$15 million for each of its 22 B-787 "Dreamliner" jets.

"The state has practically left the national airline with no modern long-haul planes," NRC head Alexander Lebedev told a conference. "There is no replacement for them. Losses from that decision will run into hundreds of millions of dollars."

If the state, holding 51 percent in Aeroflot, had issued a directive by November 1 to go ahead with the deal to buy the planes -- estimated at up to USD$3 billion -- Aeroflot would have received the first of the 22 jets in 2010.

Now senior Aeroflot officials say that the delivery of new Boeing planes should not be expected before 2014.

NRC had stepped in to buy 22 long-range Boeings on behalf of Aeroflot to avert the collapse of the USD$3 billion deal.

Aeroflot's board, lacking political backing, had repeatedly failed to decide between Boeing's pitch for its Dreamliner and a rival offer from European plane maker Airbus for its A350 XWB.