MOSCOW. Dec 25 (Interfax-AVN) - The staff of the MIG aircraft-building corporation backs Nikolai Nikitin's reinstatement in office as CEO and designer general, a senior executive with the corporation told Interfax-Military News Agency Thursday.
"We are all happy that justice has triumphed in the end, and the prime minister's order of November 4 on dismissing Nikolai Nikitin from the position of the CEO and designer general of our corporation has been rejected by the court," he said.
He emphasized that it was Nikitin's management that relieved the corporation of a severe crisis and made it an economic success.
"The staff provides full backing to Nikitin, so that he does not need to wait for a special invitation to come back, he can come back right now," the manager said.
He recalled that after Nikitin's dismissal senior test pilots, engineers, and managers of the corporation had sent a letter to the government, in which they requested the decision to be revised and wrote that another staff reshuffle could kill the corporation. The letter read that it was owing to Nikitin that MIG had raised the number and value of contracts and built a new assembly workshop without budget money.
Contracts signed under Nikitin's management provided 13,700 jobs and positioned MIG as a real national aircraft industry major, the letter also read.
Currently the corporation includes 14 various enterprises and has a portfolio of contracts worth USD812m, which is over six times as much as in 1999.
Nikitin was dismissed on the recommendation of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency Board, accused of disruption of the TU- 334 program.
The court has rejected the dismissal order and ruled that Nikitin be reinstated in office with the due compensation payable to him for the whole term of forced unemployment.