MOSCOW, November 1. /TASS/. The portfolio of orders for the Russian short-medium-range MC-21 aircraft is 315 jets of which 175 have been contracted on prepayment, Kirill Budayev, Vice-President for marketing and sales at the Irkut Corporation (developer and producer of MC-21) told reporters.

"Now we have 175 firm orders. In total, we have 315 orders, including options and memoranda," he said. Budayev noted that the plant's capacities are loaded for four years.

Earlier it was reported that among the airlines and lessors that concluded firm contracts for MC-21 are Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot (according to Budayev, the delivery of the first aircraft will start in the second half - end of 2019), as well as Ilyushin Finance, VEB-Leasing and other companies.

Irkut is working on the family of MC-21 short-and medium-haul passenger planes. The plane’s base version is MC-21-300, which seats 180-200 passengers. Starting from 2020, Irkut plans to manufacture 20 airliners of this type a year, and up to 70 such planes - from 2023. According to Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, it is planned to manufacture a total of 1,000 MS-21 planes by 2037.

In Russia’s new history, only one airliner, the regional Sukhoi Superjet 100, has been manufactured from scratch. The plane performed the first flight in 2008 and was made operational in 2011. The MC-21 has a flight range of 6,400 kilometers (3,977 miles), while the Sukhoi Superjet 100 can cover a distance of 4,578 kilometers (2,845 miles). The MC-21 will be able to carry 211 passengers, while the Sukhoi Superjet 100 airliner’s seating capacity is 108.