Pulkovo to Fly on Brazilian Jets
// State-owned company preferred Embraer
Pulkovo’s acting director general Gennady Boldyrev said the company will substitute its Tu-134 aircrafts with Brazil’s Embraer 170 jets. Pulkovo intends to lease and buy 10 of those. Thus, the company rejects using similar Russian aircrafts, An-148 and Sukhoi SuperJet100 during several coming years. Meanwhile, aviation experts believe that using any jets of this class is unlucrative due to high prices on aviation fuel.
Gennady Boldyrev, acting director general of Pulkovo, said yesterday the company will substitute all Tu-134 aircrafts it uses now. Pulkovo is to sign a contract with GECAS company to lease 4 Embraer 170 jets which will be arriving between April and June 2007. In mid-2007, Pulkovo will buy 5-6 jets more. Lease payments will reach $200,000 per month. New Embraer 170 costs around $25 million. Thus, six Brazilian jets will set Pulkovo back $150 million.
So far, Pulkovo has been considering Russian aircrafts as substitution for its Tu-134. The company said yesterday it will not give up Russian planes altogether, but it did not specify when it will buy them.
However, experts believe it is unprofitable to use jet planes for 70 passengers (such as An-148 and Embraer-170). It is lucrative to use jet planes for 90 passengers and more. In the 70-seat class, more cost-effective turbo-prop ATR 42/72 and Dash 8 are a good alternative for Tu-134.
Sergey Ryzhkin; Maria Mokeycheva, Saint-Petersburg
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 21, 2006
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