Baikal aircraft production plant to receive order for 105 planes - Trutnev

MOSCOW. Aug 4 (Interfax) - The Baikal passenger aircraft plant to be built in Komsomolsk-on-Amur will receive an order for 105 aircraft, Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev, who is also the president's envoy to the Far East Federal District, said.

"The most important task is not just to build the plant, but to ensure its capacity loading. So today we have talked about how many aircraft can be ordered in the regions, by the Federal Forestry Agency (to put out forest fires), the Health Ministry (because we need to transport sick people)," Trutnev told reporters after a meeting on the aviation accessibility of the Far Eastern regions.

"We had to assemble an order, it had to be at least 100 aircraft through the 2030 horizon. We have counted today and came to 105 planes. That is why we have met the entry requirement for setting up the new production of Baikal aircraft. I think it is a reasonable, not overstated figure," he said.

According to Trutnev, more than 2 billion rubles will be allocated for the project under the program for the development of the Far East. At the same time, private investment in the project was previously estimated at 500 million rubles.

"There are three stages of construction. During the first stage, Baikal should be certified in its basic version by the end of 2023. After that, there are tasks related to the development of avionics, allowing flights in low visibility conditions. And the third stage is to create an amphibious aircraft based on Baikal, which can land both on an airfield and on the water," Trutnev said.

As reported, Baikal-Engineering (a subsidiary of JSC Ural Civil Aviation Plant, the developer of Baikal aircraft) will implement the plant construction project. The estimated construction timeframe is 2022-2024.

The nine-seat Baikal is being created for local airlines and is intended to replace the AN-2 'crop-duster'. In the long term, annual production of the Baikal will total 50 units a year, Ural Civil Aviation Plat chief Vadim Badeha said earlier.

In January 2022, the Baikal made its first certification flight.