First Superjet Delivered to Armavia

Sukhoi Civil Aircraft delivered the first Superjet 100–S/N 95007–to Armenian airline Armavia on April 19 during a ceremony held at Yerevan Zvartnots International Airport. At the ceremony, the participants named the aircraft after the USSR’s first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin. Authorities assigned it tail number EK95015.

Armavia plans to deploy the airplane on services to Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Sochi and Ukraine. “Delivery of the first production aircraft is the key milestone of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 project,” said Mikhail Pogosyan, president of United Aircraft and general director of Sukhoi Holding. “The event opens a new stage of the program–the beginning of commercial operation and full-scale serial production. No doubt the new Russian aircraft will be a perfect operating tool in the fleet of Armavia and our colleagues from [Italian support partner] Superjet International will give full support to Armenian national carrier and provide timely and high-quality after-sales support.” 

Armavia placed the order for its pair of SSJ100-95s on Sept. 14, 2007. The SSJ100 gained its Russian type certification in February, following a more than two-and-a-half year test campaign in which Sukhoi and its partners flew four flying prototypes and used two prototypes for static and fatigue trials.

“This is definitely a great milestone for the Russian aerospace industry, because this SSJ00 is, in fact, the first production aircraft of modern Russia, created in partnership with worldwide aerospace leaders,” said Armavia’s owner, Mikhail Bagdasarov.