Russia's Sukhoi Civil Aircraft and Italy's Alenia Aeronautica will jointly develop a business jet based on the Sukhoi Superjet 100 airliner, the companies said on Tuesday at the 49th International Paris Air Show in Le Bourget.
SuperJet International, a joint venture between Alenia and Sukhoi, is to develop the SBJ, which will be offered in three configurations: VIP, corporate and government.
The flying range of the aircraft will be nearly 8,000 kilometers thanks to the installation of additional fuel tanks in the cargo compartment. It will carry passengers on fairly long distances like for example from Paris to New York.
The Superjet 100 is a family of medium-haul passenger aircraft developed by Sukhoi in cooperation with U.S. and European aviation corporations, including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace and Honeywell.
The aircraft is capable of carrying 75-98 passengers up to 4,400 kilometers.
Aeroflot has already ordered 30 Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft and is planning to order 10 more. Initially the planes will be used to carry out domestic flights from Moscow to St. Petersburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Ufa and Samara, but they will later also be used on international routes.
