Russian-Made Superjets to Start Flights to US

Published 29-01-2014, 06:23

MOSCOW, January 28 (RIA Novosti) – Russian-made Sukhoi Superjet-100 (SSJ-100) passenger aircraft will start flights to the United States in the coming months, according to the head of a Mexican low-cost airline that has SSJ-100s in service.

On January 22, the plane’s designers and manufacturers met with officials from the Interjet air carrier, the first Western company that purchased an SSJ-100, the Sukhoi aircraft maker said in a statement on Tuesday.

"According to the plan, we are opening new routes … and the first SSJ-100 flight to the US will take place soon,” Interjet president Miguel Aleman Magnani said at the meeting.

Interjet representatives "spoke positively of the plane’s performance and the quality and variety of the after-sale services,” the statement said.

The Mexican airliner has signed a contract with Superjet International worth $800 million to purchase 20 Superjets and has taken up an option to buy another 10 aircraft.

Interjet currently has four SSJ-100s in service and expects to receive 11 more aircraft this year.

The Superjet-100 is a short-to-medium haul passenger aircraft developed by Sukhoi in cooperation with US and European aviation corporations including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace and Honeywell.

The aircraft is capable of carrying up to 100 passengers for up to 4,500 kilometers. The SSJ-100 had a series of accidents in recent years. The biggest one was in May 2012 when an SSJ-100 crashed into a mountain south of Jakarta while performing a demonstration flight in Indonesia with 45 people aboard. No one survived the crash.