MOSCOW, RUSSIA — Russia's state-owned aircraft manufacturer United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) can relaunch production of Ilyushin Il-96 and Tupolev Tu-214 jets as passenger planes if required, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov said on Wednesday.
"Currently, they [Il-96 and Tu-214 airplanes] are produced as a small series for special customers,"
Borisov said.
"We are finalizing the analysis of the demand and top priority measures with colleagues from the transport segment at present. Reasoning from the picture we will have, we will probably engage the reserve for extra production of such planes as well,"
he noted.
The quadjet Il-96 carried out its maiden flight on 28 September 1988 and made its commercial debut on 29 December 1992 with the Russian flag carrier Aeroflot. The Il-96-300 has a standard passenger capacity of 262 seats in a two-class configuration with 18 seats with a seat pitch of 54 inches (140 cm) and 244 seats with a pitch of 32 inches (81 cm), of which typical seating is 3-3-3 layout.
Commercial flights with narrowbody Tu-214s began in May 2001 with Khabarovsk-based Dalavia, and the type was subsequently introduced at airlines including KrasAir and Transaero. The Tu-214 is essentially a higher gross weight variant of the Tu-204, being fitted with extra fuel tanks and structural adjustments to deal with the heavier gross weight.
Construction of civil airplanes is not suspended, Borisov said. "I would like to stress once again that we are speeding up the implementation of our flagship projects MC-21 and SSJ-100," Borisov added.
UAC to deliver 19 SSJ-100 jets in 2022
On the other hand, United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) plans to deliver nineteen SSJ-100 passenger jets to domestic air carriers in 2022, Russian Minister of Industry Denis Manturov said.
UAC has enough spares and components to proceed with the production of 19 jets, the Minister said.
"We fully have foreign components for 19 airplanes and contracts in scope of 19 aircraft will be performed until the end of the year, plus the so-called ‘white-tail airplanes," the ones not sold to customers earlier. We will not achieve their airworthiness and they will also be delivered to our Russian operators,"
UAC is also planning two MC-21 passenger jets by the end of this year.
