BRENDAN SOBIE / SINGAPORE
Aircraft would be assembled at prime contractor in Indonesia, with Malaysian firms participating in project
Indonesian and Malaysian aerospace companies are meeting this week to discuss establishing a joint programme to develop and build a 19-seat turboprop passenger aircraft.
Indonesian Aerospace (IAe) is proposing to be the project's prime contractor. Several Malaysian companies, including National Aerospace and Defence Industries (NADI) and Composites Technology Research Malaysia (CTRM), have expressed interest in participating. NADI subsidiaries, which include Airod and SME Aerospace, and CTRM could manufacture components and systems for the new aircraft, but Malaysia does not have large airframe manufacturing and assembly capabilities.
"The aircraft will be built by IAe because we are the only one with this capability," says IAe managing director of commerce and business development Iwan Soemekto.
The Indonesians and Malaysians hope to imminently set up a permanent working group for the project and agree on a workshare arrangement, timetable, financing scheme and certification process.
IAe estimates $60-80 million will be required to develop the aircraft - dubbed the N219 - and build a prototype. IAe aims to secure the first $20 million from private investors by April so it can begin designing the aircraft in the second quarter and meet its goal of flying the prototype in April 2006. Government-owned IAe hopes to certify the N219 in August 2007.
Iwan says the Indonesian government may later be requested to contribute funds, but the project will be commercially run. Malaysia is being asked to separately fund its portion of the project.
Under the proposal, Indonesia and Malaysia will later bring in companies from other South-East Asian countries. Brunei and Thailand were courted last year by IAe, but Iwam says it decided to limit the initial phase of the project to just two countries. He says other nations - including the Philippines and Singapore - will be invited to join later.
IAe plans to soon begin marketing the N219 to potential operators, with a primary focus on South-East Asian airlines. The N219 will replace the 26-seat NC-212 as IAe's primary commercial aircraft project. IAe plans to stop NC-212 production later this year but it intends to continue manufacturing the CN-235 for the military transport market.
"Building the N219 is a medium and long term project to develop the company," Iwam says. "In the next one, two and three years we need to rely on the old project, which is the CN-235."
IAe first identified a 19-seat passenger aircraft as its next big project in a new five-year business plan that was completed in October (Flight International, 28 October-3 November 2003). The company has tried to line up $100 million from banks to support the new business plan, but Iwam says IAe's weak financials and delays in implementing planned layoffs made it difficult to acquire the required capital.
"We feel we're not in good shape to go to the banks and show them our balance sheet," he says. "We have to have a second way to sell the project."
Source: Flight International
