The FINANCIAL — According to RIA Novosti, the first Sukhoi Superjet 100 passenger airplane will be delivered to Armenia's national airline Armavia, the Russian aircraft maker announced on May 11.
Sukhoi Civil Aircraft's public relations director Olga Kayukova said the Armavia would be the first recipient of a Superjet 100 because it had ordered a plane with a basic configuration. She added that the airliner was in the final stages of assembly and would be delivered soon.
"Configuration is determined by the customer," she told journalists. "The simpler the configuration, the simpler it is to make the aircraft."
Kayukova said the list price of a Superjet 100 was $28 million, but each aircraft was individually priced depending on the configuration.
She said 98 orders had been received, including 30 from Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot and 10 from Italian companies. "Some down payments have been received," she said.
Sukhoi's general director, Mikhail Pogosyan, admitted that financing the construction of the planes was a problem.
"We cannot resolve this without government support," he told journalists on Monday, adding that during the financial crisis "airlines do not posses the necessary financial stability to invest in the production of aircraft."
The Superjet 100 project is a family of medium-haul passenger aircraft developed by Sukhoi in cooperation with U.S. and European aviation corporations, including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace and Honeywell.
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