According to the plan, the first 15 Ruslans will be assembled at the Ulyanovsk-based Aviastar-SP factory in the Volga region. Serial production will start in 2007, writes Gazeta.
However, the business plan fails to deal with financial problems. The first production stage alone will require more than $1 billion.
Production of the world's biggest cargo plane was halted in 1992 because Aviastar-SP could not pay its electricity bills. Few people believed then that the oversized-cargo market would become the most successful segment of the global freight-traffic market within a few years. In fact, even though production of the Russian-Ukrainian cargo plane stopped 13 years ago, its ability to transport up to 150 tons of freight has left it unrivalled in a market segment worth hundreds of millions of dollars every year. The USAF C5-Galaxy plane, which has a smaller load-carrying capacity, rarely carries commercial payloads.
It remains unclear who will finance the project. "We hope to attract budgetary appropriations, as the national aircraft-industry development program until 2015 includes resumed Ruslan production," Yelena Yeleseyeva, a spokeswoman for Russia's Volga-Dnieper company, said. According to her, both Volga-Dnieper and Polet, which have ordered An-124 cargo planes, do not have the appropriate funds.
Igor Garivadsky, the deputy director of the Federal Industry Agency, says it will take about $250 million to prepare the Aviastar-SP factory in Ulyanovsk for resumed An-124 production.
Freight company representatives believe that, as An-124-100 planes carry 15-20% more freight every year, Ruslan aircraft will remain in demand for the next 15-20 years.
