Aeroflot to place Superjets with subsidiaries

Aeroflot (SU, Moscow Sheremetyevo) is planning to equip two of its subsidiaries with an undisclosed number of SSJ 100-95s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Vitaly Savelyev has told Russia's TASS newswire.

Earlier this year, state-backed Aeroflot signed a Letter of Intent with Sukhoi Civil Aircraft (Moscow Zhukovsky) to acquire a further twenty SuperJets with deliveries to occur by 2016. Once firmed, the order will boost Aeroflot's SuperJet order book to fifty airframes.

In a bid to ease a foreign currency crunch and to stimulate local industry, the Russian government has committed itself to weaning Russia off its dependence on Western-manufactured aircraft. 

In March, Moscow announced it would inject RUB100 billion (USD1.9 billion) into Sukhoi's parent firm, the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), to help spur the production of the SuperJet while moving to recapitalize the State Transport Leasing Company (GTLK) to the tune of RUB30 billion (USD469 million).

In June, GTLK announced it had secured placements for thirty-two Superjets (fifteen with Yamal Airlines (YC, Salekhard), fifteen with Kazakhstan's Scat (DV, Shimkent) and two with an undisclosed operator) it had bought using the funds which were extended to it in the form of tied-loans.