Aircraft

The newly appointed management of Russia's United Aircraft (OAK) has drawn up ambitious plans to produce almost 1,200 new airliners between now and 2015, writes Vladimir Karnozov.

The production plan has been outlined by OAK president Aleksei Fiodorov, who expects 50% of the aircraft to be delivered within Russia and the rest to be exported.

Around half of the new aircraft will be mainline jets: 28 Ilyushin Il-96s, 150 Tupolev Tu-204/214s and 490 small jets - the Sukhoi Superjet 100 and Tu-334.

The regional aircraft component will comprise 170 Antonov An-148 twinjets and over 330 turboprops - 155 An-38s and 177 An-140s. Additionally, Aviastar will build two An-124-100M150 Ruslans using pre-manufactured parts.

To underpin the production effort, OAK needs to create 8,400 new jobs and invest around Rb22 billion ($839 million) to upgrade plants. In a separate programme, around Rb5 billion will be needed to upgrade the Perm Motors plant that supplies PS90 series engines for the Il-96, Tu-204, and Il-76 military airlifters.

A further Rb150 billion will be required to create a leasing structure to facilitate the delivery of the aircraft to Russian and overseas airlines.

Fiodorov says that the OAK product line has been all but finalised and only minor changes are likely before the expected government formalisation of the plan in April. Final decisions remain to be taken on the Tu-334, as well as the Il-114 and Sukhoi Su-80 regional turboprops.

"The airline customers should decide which aircraft OAK produces," says Fiodorov. "We are holding intensive negotiations with the 'top 20' Russian carriers and some foreign airlines on their fleet renewal plans."