Updated following revised statement from Sukhoi
Repairs are underway on Interjet’s Sukhoi Superjet 100 fleet, with the 11 grounded aircraft expected to return to revenue service by the end of January.
Technicians from Sukhoi are making the repairs to the SSJ100 stabiliser nodes that were found to have defects with work complete on four aircraft, a spokeswoman for the airframer says.
The issues on 11 of the 22 SSJ100s in Interjet’s fleet were discovered after an airworthiness directive from Russian authorities prompted inspections just before Christmas.
“Since the end of December, a dedicated team consists of 22 [of] our specialists is on site in Mexico to put all of the airplanes back in the air by end of January," the spokeswoman says.
Earlier today, Sukhoi told FlightGlobal that all of the aircraft would return to revenue service by the middle of January.
An Interjet spokeswoman says the “safety of its passengers and its operations is a priority”.
Mexico’s civil aviation authority allowed Interjet to operate an Airbus A321 on routes impacted by the SSJ100 grounding, which occurred after inspections were complete on 27 December.
The regulator also allowed other Mexican carriers to carry Interjet passengers in the 11 markets where flights were cancelled.
Interjet is the second largest SSJ100 operator in the world after Aeroflot, which operates 29 aircraft, the Flight Fleets Analyzer shows.
The Mexican carrier has operated more than 75,000 flights with the 93-seat aircraft since it introduced the type in 2013, the airframer says.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
