The government is aiming to create a substitute for Airbus and Boeing
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin (centre) meets the staff of the Kazan Aviation Factory, the manufacturer of Tu-214, on June 22, 2023. © Sputnik / Alexander Astafyev
Russia is planning to expand the production of a passenger aircraft that could become a workhorse for domestic airlines, business daily RBK reported this week, citing Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
The government will invest nearly 42 billion rubles ($500 million) in the improvement and production of the Tupolev Tu-214, Mishustin said during a visit to an aviation factory on Thursday.
The Tu-214 is a modern narrow-body twin-engine aircraft with a range of 6,500km and a passenger capacity of 210. It was launched in 1996 to replace the Tu-154, the most-widely used aircraft in the Soviet Union and Russia from the 1960s to the early 2000s.
Russia has been striving to develop a substitute for imported planes since the introduction of Western sanctions related to Ukraine. Two of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus, were forced to stop providing parts, maintenance and technical support to airlines or maintenance companies in Russia. The government says the current imported fleet will be operational until 2030 if properly maintained.
Russia’s biggest airline, Aeroflot, sees the Tu-214 as a potential workhorse, and plans to purchase 40 of the aircraft before 2030. The liner has been used by two smaller domestic airlines, and Aeroflot developed recommendations for the manufacturer on how to modernize and improve the plane’s design, RBK wrote.
According to government estimates, it will take up to five years to set up serial production of Russian-made planes to replace foreign aircraft.
Among other domestic aircraft under development are the single-aisle airliner MC-21, which is currently undergoing trials, and the Sukhoi Superjet New, an all-Russian-component version of the Superjet (SSJ) 100 regional jet.
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