The Russian Superjet has still not entered the Western market, although it was positioned by designer Mikhail Pogosyan as a competitor to European and American airliners. Honored Pilot of the USSR, member of the Public Council of Rostransnadzor Oleg Smirnov, in a conversation with "Pervyi Tekhnicheskii", explained how the decision of then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi affected the fate of the project.
According to him, the reason was the lack of a full-fledged after-sales maintenance system and rapid spare parts delivery.
When the certification was completed, Berlusconi was the first to leave this program. Can you imagine? And not a single country still has this aircraft.
Smirnov explained that for the successful sale of any new aircraft, a guaranteed supply of spare parts and round-the-clock support are critically important. The Russian airliner did not provide this — if electronics or assemblies broke down, parts had to be searched for all over the world, while delivery and repairs were too expensive.
I have extensive contacts with aviators around the world. I ask: why are you refusing the Superjet? The answer: listen, guys, if Berlusconi — the aircraft's co-author — refused to participate in this project, then he knows more about it.
As a result, the Superjet continues to be operated mainly within Russia, while the ambitions to enter the West have remained unrealized.
Let us recall that at the end of 2010, Italian Alitalia officially abandoned plans to purchase 20 Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft and chose Brazilian Embraer instead.
"Pervyi Tekhnicheskii" previously reported that the domestic SSJ-New is not a modernization, but an aircraft rewritten from scratch. Import substitution reaches 97%, which means replacing everything: from software to hydraulic systems, from the PD-8 engine to navigation instruments.
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