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Morocco’s largest airline to buy Brazilian, Canadian or Russian planes

Royal Air Maroc intends to enlarge its fleet of planes and will need 15 regional 100-seat aircraft in the medium term
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, July 29 (Itar-Tass) - Morocco’s Royal Air Maroc is planning to announce a tender for purchasing 12-15 planes with a seating capacity of 100 passengers.

Russia’s Sukhoi SuperJet-100 (SSJ-100) has been named as a possibility, Ch-aviation said.

Royal Air Maroc intends to enlarge its fleet of planes, as recommended by international consulting companies, and will need 15 regional 100-seat aircraft in the medium term.

The airline is testing two Embraer EMB-190 planes, currently on lease, and will decide on the purchase of 100-seaters after 8-12 months of testing when the company will announce a tender.

According to Ch-aviation, Canadian Bombardier CS100 (the first plane is to go on its maiden flight in July 2013 and to be delivered to the first customers a year after that), Brazilian Embraer EMB-190 and Russian SSJ-100-95 are among the possible candidates.

In January 2013, Bahrain Air showed interest in the Russian plane. Its executive director said back then that the company was considering buying 3-5 planes but was choosing between Sukhoi SuperJet-100 and Bombardier.

He said the company would make up its mind by the end of the first quarter of 2012. However, Bahrain Air was liquidated in February 2013.

Bombardier has an impressive share of the Middle East market. Regional companies use more than 200 Bombardier planes and the company says it will supply up to 1,000 aircraft in the next twenty years.

Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) is also considering supplying 30 Sukhoi SuperJet-100 planes to Indonesia’s Kartika Airlines to a total sum of 950 million U.S. dollars, UAC President Mikhail Pogosyan earlier.

The contract between Kartika Airlines and Sukhoi Civil Aircraft (which is part of the UAC) for the supply of 30 Sukhoi SuperJet-100 planes in 2012-2015 was signed in 2010, but the delivery schedule was not specified.

On March 3, 2013, Kartika stopped operations, which may jeopardise the supply of SSJ-100 planes.

The SuperJet-100 aircraft got in the focus of public attention after one of the planes had crashed in Indonesia in May 2012, killing 45 people, including eight Russians. The accident was blamed on the pilot’s error.

Sukhoi Civil Aircraft intends to supply 30 SSJ-100 planes in 2013, including 12 to Sky Aviation (Indonesia), 3 to Lao Central (Laos), to Interjet (Mexico) and to Yakutia (Russia). About 20 planes were delivered in 2012, including to Aeroflot.

Sukhoi SuperJet-100 is a regional 100-seat plane designed and made by Sukhoi Civil Aircraft in cooperation with Alenia Aermacchi. Its basic version can fly for a distance of up to 3,048 kilometres. An increased range is 4,578 kilometres. The company plans to start making a long-range version of the plane from 2013 and to offer a business version of the plane in 2015. It may be of interest to Middle East countries.

The SuperJet, the first new Russian passenger plane over the past 20 years, is being created through unprecedentedly broad international cooperation that involves more than 30 major international aerospace companies, system and component suppliers. Sukhoi SuperJet-100 integrates the world’s best industry practices and solutions.

Sukhoi SuperJet-100 integrates the world’s best industry practices and solutions. All aircraft will be certified in accordance with both Russian and international requirements. SSJ100's technical and operational performance make the product fully marketable and capable of taking a solid share in the highly competitive global market. Thus, Sukhoi expects to sell 800 aircraft until the year 2024, while the global demand for the aircraft of this class totals 5,400. So far the company had secured 73 solid orders for the aircraft.

SuperJet-100 will in the future provide the basis for a whole family of planes, including transport and special purpose planes. However now the main goal is the certification of the plane and serial production of 60-70 planes annually.

The Sukhoi SuperJet-100 family consists of two types of aircraft of basic and increased flying ranges with the carrying capacity of 75 and 95 passengers respectively.