Armenian airline to receive first Sukhoi Superjet 100

Komsomolsk-on-Amur: The first Sukhoi Superjet 100 passenger airplane will be delivered to Armenia's national airline Armavia, according to an announcement made by Sukhoi Civil Aircraft on Monday.

Sukhoi Civil Aircraft's public relations director Olga Kayukova said Armavia would be the first recipient of a Superjet 100 because it had ordered a plane with a basic configuration. She said the airliner was in the final stages of assembly and would be delivered soon.

"Configuration is determined by the customer," she said. "The simpler the configuration, the simpler it is to make the aircraft."

Though the list price of a Superjet 100 was $28 million, Kayukova said each aircraft was priced differently depending on the configuration.

So far 98 orders for the aircraft had been received, including 30 from Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot and 10 from Italian companies.

Sukhoi director general, Mikhail Pogosyan, admitted that financing was a problem in the construction of the planes.

"We cannot resolve this without government support," he said Monday. He pointed out that with global the financial crisis "airlines do not possess the necessary financial stability to invest in the production of aircraft."

Meanwhile, during his visit to the Superjet assembly line in Komsomolsk-on-Amur on Monday, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin said the Russian government had allocated 6.8 billion rubles ($210 million) to Sukhoi Civil Aircraft to fund the Superjet project.

"The increase in financing is connected with some rises in the price of production and accessories," Putin told workers.

The Superjet 100 project is a medium-haul passenger aircraft developed by Sukhoi in cooperation with US and European aviation corporations, including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace and Honeywell.