MOSCOW. Feb 14 (Interfax-AVN) - The Ilyushin Finance Leasing Company is waiting for the transfer of an USD80m payment for the government purchase of its controlling interest before the end of the first quarter of 2002, Company General Director Alexander Rubtsov told a press conference in Moscow on Thursday.
Last year, Ilyushin Finance won the state tender on financing the leasing of 6 IL-96-300 long-range passenger planes for Aeroflot-Russian Airlines, and 4 IL-96-400T cargo planes for Atlant-Soyuz. Manufacturing of the first plane for Atlant-Soyuz will be financed starting in late February, and the plane is expected to make its maiden flight 12 to 14 months after the construction begins.
Manufacturing of the planes for Aeroflot will be financed starting in March, Rubtsov said. Ilyushin Finance and Aeroflot reached an understanding on Wednesday that the planes will be fitted with PS-90A2, Russia's most advanced aircraft engines that are being designed by the Permskiye Motory enterprise.
In the future, Ilyushin Finance is planning to restore production at the Voronezh aircraft plant that is making IL-96 planes, as well as at the Kazan and Ulyanovsk aircraft plant.
According to Rubtsov, his company, the Tupolev design bureau and the Ilyushin design bureau have agreed that it was necessary to unitize avionics and aircraft engines.
Ilyushin Finance will decide on setting up a company for servicing Russian-made planes in spring, he said. "We have decided to set up a servicing company several months after the production of the planes begins," Rubtsov said.
Russian aviation authorities will deter the import of old Russian and foreign-made planes that fail to meet new international noise standards, he noted.