ARMENIAN AIRLINE TO RECEIVE FIRST SUKHOI SUPERJET 100

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Aviation & Aerospace
May 13 2009

Komsomolsk-on-Amur: The first Sukhoi Superjet 100 passenger airplane
will be delivered to Armenia’s national airline Armavia, according
to an announcement made by Sukhoi Civil Aircraft on Monday.

Sukhoi Civil Aircraft’s public relations director Olga Kayukova said
Armavia would be the first recipient of a Superjet 100 because it
had ordered a plane with a basic configuration. She said the airliner
was in the final stages of assembly and would be delivered soon.

"Configuration is determined by the customer," she said. "The simpler
the configuration, the simpler it is to make the aircraft."

Though the list price of a Superjet 100 was $28 million, Kayukova said
each aircraft was priced differently depending on the configuration.

So far 98 orders for the aircraft had been received, including 30
from Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot and 10 from Italian companies.

Sukhoi director general, Mikhail Pogosyan, admitted that financing
was a problem in the construction of the planes.

"We cannot resolve this without government support," he said Monday. He
pointed out that with global the financial crisis "airlines do not
possess the necessary financial stability to invest in the production
of aircraft."

Meanwhile, during his visit to the Superjet assembly line in
Komsomolsk-on-Amur on Monday, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin
said the Russian government had allocated 6.8 billion rubles ($210
million) to Sukhoi Civil Aircraft to fund the Superjet project.

"The increase in financing is connected with some rises in the price
of production and accessories," Putin told workers.

The Superjet 100 project is a medium-haul passenger aircraft developed
by Sukhoi in cooperation with US and European aviation corporations,
including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace
and Honeywell.