Air Transport

Sukhoi expects to fly the first Superjet 100 during April, but the delay in reaching this milestone has pushed back deliveries to launch customer Aeroflot.

The SSJ prototype was rolled out in September last year and first flight was due before the end of 2007, with deliveries to Aeroflot scheduled to start following certification in October this year.

Aleksei Fiodorov, president of Sukhoi's parent company United Aircraft (OAK),

acknowledges that deliveries to Aeroflot are "likely to be delayed". He adds that "the delivery terms are very tough" and are unlikely to be met by the manufacturer.

Although neither Fiodorov nor Sukhoi have revealed the full extent of the delay, sources at OAK say it could be as much as a year to 18 months.

Fiodorov blames the delay partly on the late delivery of certain vendor items, specifically believed to be the engines, doors and electrical parts. Sukhoi denies rumours that there are also technical problems to be resolved, such as insufficient wing strength and buffeting issues.

Certification of the SSJ's PowerJet SaM146 engine was initially planned for 2006 but has been repeatedly postponed, although it is now imminent. Mikhail Kuzmenko, general designer of NPO Saturn which is partnered with Snecma in the PowerJet joint venture, blames the hold-up in engine certification and deliveries partially on "repeated postponements" of deliveries of vendor items: "We have hundreds of suppliers in Europe and other regions...setting up industrial co-operation appeared to be a more difficult task than we had envisioned."

Sukhoi Civil Aircraft says that SSJ prototypes Nos 2 and 3 are in the final assembly shop, and No 4 is in subassembly. It believes that the speedy completion of these four aircraft will help it accelerate the certification programme once flight-testing begins.