Russia's outsize cargo carrier Volga-Dnepr has ordered an Antonov An-124-100 Ruslan freighter from the Aviastar factory in Ulyanovsk. The cargo carrier recently secured a $29.9 million 10-year loan from the World Bank's International Finance division to fund the purchase of the aircraft.
The freighter - Volga-Dnepr's tenth of the type - will be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2004.
Volga-Dnepr has already invested $90 million in the Ruslan programme and is keen to continue investing in the aircraft's production and improvement.
The airframe ordered from Aerostar is the last one produced by Aviastar in the Soviet era and has stood without engines and systems for several years.
"We are forming a pool of airlines to form a joint order," to ensure continuation of the Ruslan production line, says chief executive Aleksei Isaikin.
The next step is to receive UK Civil Aviation Authority certification for the An-124-100 - an effort launched a year ago.
Certification is needed to base "one or two" of Volga-Dnepr's Ruslans in the UK so these could be used as a surety for loans from Western banks.
"We have got airlines willing to get more aircraft, the manufacturer is ready to build them and the bankers are interested in funding the production. All we need to do now is to make the ends meet," says Isaikin.
UK CAA certification would come in the form of acknowledgement of Russian type certification, rather than full certification as a new airframe, says Anatoly Kruglov, chairman of the Russian Air Register of Interstate Aviation Committee. This approval would be followed by certification from the European Joint Aviation Authorities.
Source: Flight International
