By Kieran Daly in London
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) is giving serious consideration to Sukhoi’s Russian Regional Jet (RRJ) as it sets about modernising the regional fleets of its family of affiliated and subsidiary carriers.
The Star Alliance airline has been impressed by the extensive line-up of Western suppliers that Sukhoi has gathered and regards it as a plausible competitor to the Embraer 190 and Bombardier CRJ900.
Supplier-sources say the airline is also attracted by the RRJ’s sub-$20 million price, which goes a long way to compensate for its later entry into service.
Vice-president fleet development Kurt Kuhne says: “We are looking at all the candidates and what I have seen of the presentations from Sukhoi is credible. Companies that are normally involved in being subsuppliers to Airbus and Boeing are doing the same thing on this aircraft.
“When it comes to the [Thales] cockpit and so on, and we look at the list of subsuppliers to the Russian aircraft, we don’t see many differences. If you compare that to the Embraer product then it is more or less all the same names there.”
The supplier list includes Snecma’s Powerjet joint venture with NPO Saturn of Russia, Thales, Liebherr, B/E Aerospace, Intertechnique, Messier-Dowty and Goodrich, among others. Finmeccanica of Italy has just agreed to take a 25% equity stake in the programme.
Kuhne is faced with a complex task of addressing the diverse needs of a group of airlines comprising Blue1 of Finland, Widerøe’s Flyveselskap of Norway, Air Baltic of Latvia, Estonian Air and possibly Spanair of Spain. Their current fleets include the BAE Systems Avro RJ85/100, Bombardier Q100/300/400, Boeing 737-500 and Boeing MD-80.
Kuhne declines to discuss numbers or timings, saying they differ in each case, but sources familiar with the programme indicate the requirement is for about 20 aircraft. He does, however, say the family concept is important, noting: “The [Bombardier] CSeries had a problem as a one-off. It had nothing to do with the family. But Sukhoi can do a family.”
Sukhoi’s plan envisages first flight in September 2007, concurrent Russian/European certification a year later, and entry into service in November 2008. The “certification basis” is due to be presented to the European Aviation Safety Agency about now.
Kuhne says: “For some airlines it might be late, but it very much depends on each airline’s need.”
Sukhoi says it has frozen work on the smaller RRJ-60 model and is focusing on the 100-seat-class RRJ-95. The first fuselage should be built “by the end of the summer”.
Blog:
Kieran Daly is curious about the RRJ's Airbus influence. Read his blog.
Source: Flight International
