Superjet the biggest casualty as Russia slashes airliner output plans
The production plan for the Sukhoi Superjet 100 over the next four years has been slashed by more than two-thirds as part of a wider response by the Kremlin to adjust the country's airliner output in response to the global financial crisis.
The move, which has been approved by state-owned aircraft manufacturing umbrella organisation United Aircraft (UAC), will see Russia's overall planned airliner deliveries between 2009 and 2012 cut by more than 50% to fewer than 190 aircraft.
All the in-production airliner programmes being built by Russian plants are affected. Production over the 2009-12 period had been planned to exceed 400 aircraft - over half of which would have been the Superjet. UAC says the adjustment is necessary because of the impact of the global financial crisis and resultant weakening in demand for new aircraft following the reduction in passenger and cargo traffic. The company, however, asserts that military aircraft production plans remain unchanged.
© Marina Lystseva |
Planned output of the all-new Superjet 100 regional jet - which is currently in flight-testing - has been slashed from 230 units to 74. Plans to expand the production capacity of the Superjet assembly line at the KnAAPO plant to make it capable of producing 70 units a year from 2011 have also been suspended.
One beneficiary of the revisions is the KAPO plant in Kazan, where the increased gross weight version of the Tupolev Tu-204, the Tu-214, is assembled. The plan for KAPO to curtail final assembly activities and switch to being a supplier of wings for a centralised Tu-204 assembly line at Aviastar in Ulyanovsk has been postponed. The plant will now produce a further 12 Tu-214s before transitioning to being a wing supplier.
Meanwhile, the revised output looks to have scuppered any near-term revival of the Tupolev Tu-334 regional jet and the Antonov An-124 freighter, with no production plan for either type during 2009-12.
