Snecma and NPO Saturn to join hands on manufacturing engines for the Superjet-100

Paris: Snecma, part of the French Safran Group, will join hands with leading Russian engine-maker NPO Saturn to manufacture 1,600 engines for 800 Superjet-100 regional aircraft. The Superjet-100 is a Sukhoi Design Bureau-led project.

The SuperJet-100 project is a family of medium-range passenger aircraft being developed by the Sukhoi Design Bureau in cooperation with major American and European aviation corporations, including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace, and Honeywell. Before being designated as Superjet-100, the project was referred to as the Russian Regional Jet.

"Snecma, which is part of the SAFRAN Group, will join efforts with [the Russian] NPO Saturn, to make about 1,600 SaM-146 engines for 800 [SuperJet-100] planes," said Marc Ventre, a deputy director general of the French holding.

SAFRAN is an international high-technology group with four core businesses -- aerospace propulsion, aircraft equipment, defense security, and communications. With 61,400 employees in over 30 countries, SAFRAN has annual revenues exceeding 10 billion euros ($13.4 billion).

"The first deliveries of the engines are scheduled for 2008," Ventre said, adding that SAFRAN would provide 28 per cent of all components for the Superjet-100 aircraft.

The SuperJet project is a unifying project for Russian companies that recently merged into United Aircraft Building Corporation (UABC). It incorporates commercial and military aircraft makers, such as Sukhoi, Ilyushin and Tupolev, as well as companies involved in distribution, including Aviaexport.

UABC, which is 90 per cent state owned, consolidates aircraft building companies and state assets engaged in the manufacture, design and sale of military, non-military, transport and unmanned aircraft in a bid to streamline the Russian aviation industry.

Sukhoi plans to produce at least 700 of the Superjets, and intends to sell 35% of them to North America, 25% to Europe, 10% to Latin America, and 7% to Russia and China. The project would appear to have taken off to a good start with Russia's first deputy prime minister, Sergei Ivanov, saying ten days earlier that Sukhoi would conclude contracts on the sale of up to 100 of these aircraft by the end of 2007.