It appears from press reports in Moscow that the relationship between Sukhoi's
subsidiary Sukhoi Civil Aircraft (SCA) and US regional jet startup Alliance
Aircraft, may have reached an end. Comments by the Andrei Ilyin, General Director
of SCA , reported in the Moscow daily Kommersant, suggested that SCA had decided
not to participate in development of the StarLiner programme after an agreement scheduled to be signed in September failed to materialize
.
According to the report, in early November SCA had informed Alliance about
its decision to pull out of the StarLiner project "because of major differences"
on the development of the project and its financing. The decision to withdraw
was reportedly made after Sukhoi had discovered that the startup had increasing
problems raising the required financing for the project and mounting debts had resulted in
a number of court claims for non payment of bills for hotel rooms and furniture . In addition to these problems, the company has a deteriorating
relationship with the state authorities in New Hampshire, where the production
plant was to be built at the former Pease US Air Force Base. The tension between
Alliance and New Hampshire demonstrated by an announcement on the 11th of August
that Alliance intended to move from New Hampshire to another location
that was "more business friendly".
According to Sukhoi, despite a number of statements relating to letters of intent
for 30 aircraft;the producer was also unable to demonstrate firm commitments
from customers. This lack of clear orders, was despite the announcement by Alliance that it
had a large 450-jet order (250 firm, 200 options and 100 rolling options) with
New York based Global Airlines Corporation, a start-up carrier, valued at $4.6
billion for the firm orders and $3.6 billion for the options. In addition to statements
in early September that Alliance had added a memorandum of
agreement with start-up Northwest US Legacy Airline for 80 aircraft (30 firms
and 50 options). Earl Robinson, Alliance Aircraft's President and CEO, adding
at the time of the Legacy announcement that the company had reached understandings with a number of US
and European airlines on future sales of Starliner aircraft.
The role of Sukhoi in the proposed venture was never entirely clear from
the announcement of its involvement at ILA'2000 in Berlin. It appears
from the Sukhoi side at least, that they envisaged their role in the process
as being that of a main contractor working on the aircraft's design and development.
Sukhoi was clearly reluctant from the start to become involved in any risk sharing
in the programme. The expression of potential interest from Aeroflot, did however,
lead to reports of possible Russian production of the aircraft. This lack of
enthusiasm for taking risk was further emphasized by comments made by General
Designer of Sukhoi, Mikhail Simonov, that the company was more interested in
a supersonic business jet or as a major contractor role on a large multi deck
aircraft. Simonov however, subsequently left the board of the Sukhoi holding
company suggesting that his views were not necessarily those of the whole of
the company's management; although other reports have reported that other senior
managers were concerned about the company's ability to deliver major civilian
projects given their lack of experience in the area.
The withdrawal from the Alliance project has left Sukhoi without a major programme
outside of the slowly advancing S-80 twin turboprop currently involved in a
sluggish flight-testing programme. The company however, says that it remains
committed to a regional jet programme and is still developing designs. In addition
to pursuing discussions with other undisclosed international partners and has
strongly suggested that announcements could be expected by later this or early
next year. It is also continuing work on the supersonic business jet and believes
that the market exists for such a product, despite the fact that Sukhoi still
lacks an engine for the proposed aircraft.
