Russian aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi rolled out a new regional passenger jet that it hopes will revive the country’s civil aviation industry and rival similar models from Brazil and Canada: the SuperJet-100 regional aircraft.
     The medium-haul passenger aircraft was 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.
     First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who is in charge of Russia’s United Aircraft-Building Corporation (UABC), thanked Russian constructors and engineers for their work in creating the SuperJet, as well as foreign colleagues from Italy, France and other countries. The plane’s construction would have been impossible without international cooperation, he said.
     “It requires all the best that it is currently available in the world, including technology, materials and equipment, to create a competitive product,” Ivanov said.
     The Sukhoi SuperJet-100 is the company’s largest civilian aircraft program. The manufacturer plans to produce at least 700 SuperJet-100s, and intends to sell 35% of them to North America, 25% to Europe, 10% to Latin America, and 7% to Russia and China. It will not break even on this project until the sale of 300 planes is achieved. The overall market for the SuperJet-100 is estimated at about 5,500 airliners, worth $100 billion, up to 2023.
     So far, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, a subsidiary of the Sukhoi holding, has secured over 70 orders (including from Italy) for its regional aircraft and plans to increase the number to 100 by the end of the year. Aeroflot, Russia’s largest airline is ordering 15 of these new airplanes. The catalogue price of a 95-seat basic version is $28 million, but the company is currently working on both smaller and larger capacity models of the SuperJet-100 series. At the same time, the company is planning to continue the modernization and production of its famous family of military aircraft, including Su-27 and Su-30 Flanker fighters, Su-33 Flanker-D naval fighters, Su-34 Fullback strike aircraft and Su-35 Flanker-E air superiority fighters.