Sukhoi to invest $300 million to re-equip Superjet 100 manufacturers
18 Apr 2008
Moscow: Russian design bureau, Sukhoi JSC, has said that it will invest about $300 million to re-equip manufacturers that will produce the new regional passenger aircraft, Superjet 100. According to Sukhoi CEO, Mikhail Pogosyan, the Superjet 100 has completed the first stage of technical re-equipping.
"The first stage of the technical re-equipping has been completed. And the first planes are being manufactured. The second phase envisions the production of 20-30 aircraft a year. The next re-equipping stage is calculated to produce 70 planes," Pogosyan told reporters.
The Superjet 100 project is a family of medium-range passenger aircraft designed and manufactured by the Sukhoi Design Bureau in association with major American and European aerospace corporations, including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace and Honeywell.
The Superjet 100 medium-haul passenger airliner project is expected to cost approximately $1.4 billion. The Russian state-owned Development Bank, France's export agency Coface and Italy's SACE signed an agreement this week that will establish an integrated system of financing international sales of Superjet 100s, according to a statement issued by the Russian bank.
The engines of the Superjet 100 were tested successfully in mid-February and the first flight tests are expected to take place in May 2008.
The company's plans, as announced earlier, are to manufacture at least 700 Superjet 100s, selling 35 per cent in North America, 25 per cent in Europe, 10 per cent in Latin America, and 7 per cent in Russia and China.
So far, according to a statement made by Pogosyan in January, the company has secured 73 firm orders for the aircraft.
The 95-seat base model comes for a list price of $28 million. Sukhoi is currently working on both smaller and larger versions of the aircraft.
According to Russian estimates, there exists a market for around 5,500 Superjet 100's, at an estimated value of around $100 billion, through to 2023.
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