The Ilyushin Il-96 liner returned to Cuba after more than a year in Russia.

Cuba's national airline, Cubana de Aviación, yesterday celebrated the return of the Il-96-300 aircraft (c/n CU-T1250) from Russia.
The aircraft arrived in Russia last September 2022 where it spent most of its time in Voronezh undergoing maintenance.

Last November 18, the Ilyushin Il-96-300 (CU-T1250) long-range wide-body passenger airliner of Cubana de Aviación took off from the VASO aeronautical plant in Voronezh (subsidiary of Ilyushin) after completing a series of repairs and maintenance and carry out the necessary tests. Just under an hour later he landed at Zhukovsky airport near Moscow, where once he has undergone the necessary customs procedures he will be able to return to Cuba.
This Il-96-300 was made available to the Cuban airline in December 2005 and carried out passenger transport until February 2022. Three other aircraft of this type, due to lack of funds to maintain their airworthiness, stopped to fly even earlier: the CU-T1251 received in 2006 flew intermittently until the summer of 2021 and the CU-T1254 only until 2013. The fourth Cuban Il-96-300 (CU-T1717), used until spring of 2014 from Aeroflot (ex RA-96008 produced in 1993), managed to meet the scheduled deadlines for just over 2 years, starting from September 2014. In May 2017 and given its venerable age and its solid period of operation, it is unlikely to ever get off the ground.
The CU-T1250 arrived in Voronezh for repairs in August last year. Its first flight, after completing all the necessary work, took place on Friday 10 November and eight days later it was accompanied to the factory for its long journey. It is expected to arrive in Havana in the next few days to resume flying. After all, let us remember that until the beginning of last year it was Cubana that remained the only airline that carried out commercial transportation of passengers on the Il-96-300 (in Russia they stopped almost 10 years ago, in the spring of 2014 and since then the Il-96-300 has only served in the Government Special Flight Unit "Rossjia").
In the photo by Alexey Filatov the Il-96-300 (CU-T1250) in the sky over Voronezh; November 18, 2023.