Sukhoi's SuperJet Pays off Entirely at Farnborough

A batch of 30 medium-capacity Sukhoi SuperJet passenger planes will be delivered to leasing company Pearl, which has its headquarters on the Bermudas. The contract is evaluated at $900 million, delivery term - 2011.

Photo: Sukhoi's SuperJet Pays off Entirely at Farnborough

"The agreement with the international leasing company proves the quality of our plane and strengthens our positions on the market," SuperJet International's CEO Alessandro Franzioni said.

Sukhoi SuperJet is the first plane which was designed and built in post-Soviet Russia. Over ten foreign companies, including the USA's Boeing, took part in the development of the project.

At Farnborough, SuperJet group has already signed the $951-million contract to deliver 30 airplanes to Indonesia's Kartika. Thus, the number of contracts for the new airliner in Farnborough counts 60 airplanes. This is exactly the number that was previously named as the number of jets required to be sold to pay off the whole project.

At Farnborough, there were other orders signed for 49 SuperJet-100 planes, including 24 planes for Thailand's Orient Thai Airlines, although the agreement is going through a preliminary stage at the moment.

A Russian company, Gazpromavia, also signed the letter of intent to purchase 10 planes, although the amount of the deal had not been unveiled.

First contracts for Sukhoi Superjet were signed in 2008. Sukhoi currently has over 200 contracts for the delivery of the plane.

Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that the first deliveries were supposed to be made at the end of 2008, no airline has received any planes yet. Delivery terms have been pushed back several times due to engine certification problems.

RIA Novosti