KAPO poised for further orders (490 words)

Published: 5/24/2001

KAPO has handed over the first serially produced Tu-214 to Dalavia at its plant in Tashkent, as part of a financing deal involving the Tatarstan government, Khabarovsk regional administration, Dalavia, and oil and gas leasing company, Financial Lease Company (FLC). The aircraft - the first of two - is leased to Dalavia (due to be merged into a larger regional entity) by FLC, which is owned by Zenit Bank and state-controlled oil company, Tatneft. Funding has been provided from the two regions: Tatarstan has invested $9.6m, in line with earlier reports and Khabarovsk has put up $6m. KAPO has contributed $18.8m in kind, through the value of unfinished airframes and the completion of the aircraft. In anticipation of the further orders, KAPO is reported to have invested around Rb1.2 billion (over $41m) in setting up the serial production of the Tu-214, which is priced between $20-25m, depending on layout. Dalavia has managed to acquire the aircraft more cheaply, owing to the use of written-down airframes, constructed several years ago. KAPO has produced 10 or 11 further airframes that lie unfitted in the plant and says that this fact will allow it to sell the aircraft at “some discount “ to the quoted range. The creation of completely new aircraft will cost more but, according to Alexey Sokolov, Chairman of Zenit Bank, financing will be easy to come by, after sales of five or six aircraft. According to Sokolov, FLC has orders for aircraft, but still has to finetune the financing. State-owned Vneshtorgbank is ready to fund, but only on the condition that the lease company is one of the officially approved schemes announced earlier this year and so receives government guarantees. The approved schemes require $100m of capital and FLC has addressed this by going into a joint venture with KAPO, Pulkovo, GTK Rossiya, and International Bank St Petersburg. According to press reports, the Institute of Economics of Aviation Industry (NIIEAP) believes that the lease scheme offered by FLC is the most viable currently being offered in Russia. However, it does require at least seven aircraft to be leased, in order for costs to be recovered on the eight-year terms that, according to Sokolov, carry an interest rate of below 20% for operators. The second Tu-214 is scheduled for delivery in June, according to Pavel Sevastyanov, General Director of Dalavia, with both aircraft mainly operating between Khabarovsk-Moscow and flights to Korea and China. Commenting on other possible customers, Alexander Neradko, Head of GSGA, the civil aviation agency, said he believed that the federal budget was likely to provide financing for the purchase of the Tu-214s for Rossiya and that several Russian regions are considering acquiring the aircraft. Krasair is also understood to have a MoU with KAPO. Yury Vorobyev, Chief Designer of the Tu-214, claims that, subject to financing, KAPO could produce four aircraft in 2001, seven in 2002 and 12 in 2003.

Article ID: 2554