HOWARD GETHIN / MOSCOW
Airline involvement would provide much-needed boost to regional turboprop which has lacked funding and orders
Ilyushin Finance and the Transaero affiliate Transaero Express are discussing the formation of a financial leasing structure for the Il-114 regional turboprop.
According to Nikolai Talikov, chief designer of Ilyushin, preliminary discussions involve five to 10 aircraft. Issues such as the price of the aircraft and the provision of funding to the leasing programme remain unresolved, according to Alexander Rubtsov, general director of Ilyushin Finance.
The acquisition of the 60-seat turboprop by Transaero would provide a welcome boost for the programme, which has been stalled by a lack of finance at the aircraft's Uzbekistan-based production plant TAPO (Tashkent Aviation Production Organisation). It would also represent a departure for the Russian independent airline, which has traditionally focused on international and long haul domestic routes. The airline's involvement in the programme is interpreted as a possible move toward developing feeder services to its longer routes.
The Il-114 first flew in 1990 and received Russian certification in 1996, but the only customer to take delivery to date has been state-controlled Uzbekistan Airlines. The development of the westernised, Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127 Il-114-100 variant has boosted the performance but is yet to translate into commercial success.
Source: Flight International
