The new import-substituted aircraft SJ-100 is part of the popular line of airliners with a capacity of about 100 seats and is effective on routes with moderate passenger traffic and a duration of 40–50 minutes to 1.5–2 hours. Aviation expert Andrei Velichko spoke about which countries the domestic aircraft may be in demand in.
According to him, under the stated conditions, the operation of the SJ-100 allows maintaining the economics of flights without artificially limiting the frequency of flights and maintaining an acceptable load factor.
Velichko sees the most obvious interest from carriers in the post-Soviet countries, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Belarus, where comparable parameters of regional transportation have historically been formed.
Under certain conditions, aircraft of this class may find application in more remote markets, including Iran, India, North Korea and a number of Latin American countries, where the structure of route networks largely corresponds to the parameters of Russian regional transportation.
"The First Technical" calculated that the total population of these countries and regions is about 2.33 billion people, or 30% of the Earth's population.
Earlier, Velichko noted in a comment to our publication that if sanctions are lifted, Russia will inevitably return to the international market of civil aviation, but no longer as a buyer, but as a seller.
In addition, Russia has concluded a contract with the Indian corporation HAL for licensed production of SJ-100.
