More shots from visiting the SuperJet here at Le Bourget today.
David Kaminski (right) of Air Transport Intelligence and Flightglobal and Barbara Cockburn of Flightglobal give a wave from the SuperJet cockpit. And (below) share a joke inside the aircraft. SuperJet had put in three rows of seats at the rear of the cabin.
David Kaminski does a piece to video for Flightglobal inside the SuperJet Cockpit.
Looking from the back of the prototype here at Paris towards the cockpit.
Those friendly folks at Sukhoi kindly let a few of us from Airline Business and Flightglobal take a peek inside the Sukhoi SuperJet here at Paris.
In this shot (below) you can see me, Mark Pilling, and the test equipment that lines the main fuselage. After the show the aircraft returns to Russia for more testing and then goes to Armenia for hot-and-high work.
The aircraft is the second flying prototype and takes part in the flying display every day.
Sukhoi has put a few rows of seats in this prototype to show visitors what a proper cabin configuration could look like. The company says the SuperJet is a regional aircraft with a mainline aircraft feel. It certainly is wide. The general layout is for 98-seats in a 3-2 configuration.
Grigory Feodorov of Sukhoi's Aircraft Technical Support is on hand to answer any questions about the SuperJet's test programme.
In a sweltering press room, AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes stole the show and the hearts of Airbus. The Transport Ministers of France and Malaysia also turned up to show their support and EADS head Louis Gallois came along to join in the fun.
Above: A good old-fashioned scrum as Tony poses for snaps.
Above: Tony interviewed by Bloomberg with Airbus chief salesman John Leahy and EADS head Louis Gallois looking on.
In the press conference Tony thanked Leahy for his efforts in making the deal happen. "I don't know your title," said Tony, introducing Leahy. "Somebody who sells," joked Leahy.
Above: Gallois thanks Tony for the business.
Above: No ties gentleman? Well Tony never wears a tie. I gestured to Tom Enders about his lack of tie (not usual you see) and pointed to Tony. Enders nods. He has discarded his corporate emblem in true low-cost carrier fashion, in honour of one of his company's largest customers.
Speaking at the press conference, Enders said: "This order is proof there are some rays of sunshine in the market."
Superjet International chief executive Alessandro Franzoni had a big smile on his face an hour ago as we photographed him for Flight Daily News here at the show.
He was posing in front of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 in the static park shortly after signing a deal with Malev for the Hungarian carrier to take delivery of the 98-seater jet.
This is big news for Sukhoi as it seeks to establish the Russian-built aircraft in the world market.
As we waited for Franzoni Sukhoi's test pilots Leonid Chikunov (left) and Alexander Yablontsev were being interviewed by the Italian media.
To see more Paris Air Show coverage from Flightglobal follow this link.
The Airline Business editorial team has shfited its based of operations, along with the rest of the Flightglobal, Flight International and Air Transport Intelligence journalists, to Paris for this week's big air show here in the French capital.
Check out our live Paris Air Show feed here.
It's going to be a busy week as we've got some massive dailies papers to produce, but look out for the odd blog from the team as well when we get a spare moment.
How do UK airlines score on customer satisfaction? The answer, new figures published today by the UK National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI) suggest, is they outperform their US counterparts but lag the national average for the UK.
NCSI-UK is a sister initiative of the American Customer Satisfaction Index developed by Professor Claes Fornell in conjunction with the University of Michigan - and airlines were one of the sectors it specifically covered in the first quarter of 2009.
"The airlines category debuts in NCSI with a score of 69, below the national average [for the UK of 73%], but substantially better than the US [airlines figure of 64]," the report says. "While higher fares contribute to lower passenger satisfaction, low service quality has an even greater impact. And while customer complaint frequency is less than the national average at only 6%, barely half the national average, airlines do one of the poorest jobs of any industry at handling the complaints they do receive - with the exception of Virgin, which seems to have excellent complaint handling."
You can read more about the NCSI first quarter study here
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