An-124-100 Production Re-Start On Hold?

The long held dream of Volga Dnepr to restart production of the An124-100 has suffered something of a setback recently as reported by ITAR-TASS.

It seems that the project could be delayed for one or two years due to the global economic situation (should the project ever have had a starting point from which to be delayed).   The announcement came from Dmitry Romanov, investments and external relations minister of Russia’s Ulyanovsk Region, at a news conference on Thursday.

An-124-100

Originally manufactured in Kiev, Aviastar factory before production was moved to aircraft maker Aviastar-SP in the Ulyanovsk Region the aircraft was designed by Ukraine's Antonov Aeronautical Scientific/Technical Complex (Antonov ASTC) in the 1980s. Mass production was begun in 1984 with several regiments of aircraft being delivered to the Soviet Air Force but ceased with the breakup of the Soviet Union when the current civil operations took off.

A very large amount of investment would be required to return these aircraft to production.  Even with the lower costs available in Russia (a rapidly diminishing advantage as costs increase) the cost of producing aircraft approximately equivalent in size to a Boeing 747 or large Airbus must amount to a similar order of costs.

The economics of the project which talks in terms of producing one or two aircraft per year are difficult to comprehend.

Despite this, the Russian airline Volga-Dnepr and the Aviastar-SP factory continue to pursue talks with various federal agencies to resume production with Volga-Dnepr expected to buy the bulk of the planes.  Last year, Volga-Dnepr said that it planned to buy up to 100 upgraded Ruslan jets by 2030.