Rostec eyeing the regional aviation market

Russia’s Rostec State Corporation has by now come to control virtually all the domestic aerospace component vendors, from engine houses to avionics specialists. Now the aviation giant is planning to have an indigenous final assembly capability for regional turboprop airliners.

In August Rostec signed a MoU with Canadian manufacturer Bombardier to set up a Russian assembly line for Q400 turboprop aircraft. The CIS-wide Interstate Aviation Committee certified this model in mid-2012; three of the type are already in service with Yakutsk-based Yakutia Airlines.

The Russian project is set to become Bombardier’s first assembly line outside North America. The 50/50 joint venture is estimated to cost $100 mln. Bombardier will contribute with production technology, design documentation, and intellectual property rights. Rostec, for its part, undertakes to build an assembly facility in the Ulyanovsk port special economic zone in 2014. 

Russian assembly of Q400s should begin in 2015, followed by the launch of local airframe components production in 2016. The Ulyanovsk facility is expected to build up to 24 airliners per year. Alexei Fyodorov, Rostec’s managing director for aviation projects, says there is a market for 250 aircraft of the Q400 class in Russia through to 2030, and that the design capacity of the Russian assembly line would be enough to meet the potential demand.