Yesterday, Jon Ostrower via his Flight Blogger site posted some pretty sweet photos of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 in Aeroflot livery and I wanted to share as well.
The Superjet is a new regional jet that will compete in the 75-100 seat market. The aircraft saw its first flight on May 19, 2008, but still has not made their first delivery. Last I heard and still according to their website, they were expecting to deliver the first aircraft during the fourth quarter of 2010. However Ostrower is reporting that the airliner is expected to earn Russian certification by the end of this month and European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification in 2012. The Superjet has almost 200 orders and the first will be delivered to Aeroflot Armavia (updated: first two go to Armavia, then Aeroflot will get their first)
Recently Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin put pressure on Aeroflot and their subsidiaries to purchase more Russian-built aircraft to help with their fleet modernization versus Airbus and Boeing. Currently Aeroflot has 40 Superjets on order with an option for 15 additional.
You can view more photos of the Superjet 100 via Sukhoi’s Flickr page.
The first superjet is being delivered to Armavia:
http://airlinenewsblog.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/sukhoi-superjet-100-the-savior-to-russia/
You are quite correct. First two go to Armavia then Aeroflot will get their first one. Updated the post. Thanks for pointing that out.
David
Malev the Hungarian Airline is planning to replace their whole fleet of Boeing 737s with this Sukhoi RJ. I guess they will have to wait for the European Certification before that can happen though.
That is a beautiful airplane! It looks great, and I would love to see it flying around the US someday. Although I am a Boeing-man at heart. This would be great competition for the CRJ-700.