Russia’s Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company (SCAC) built 34 Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ100) regional jets in 2017, or nearly 55% up on 2016. The previous peak in production dates back to 2014 at 37 airframes.

SCAC delivered 30 SSJ100s in 2017. The aircraft mostly went to VEB Leasing, which has a lease contract with Aeroflot for 20 of the type, and also to State Transport Leasing Company (GTLK), which leases SSJ100s to various carriers, including Yamal Airlines, Azimuth Airlines, and IrAero.

Azimuth, which launched in the second half of 2017, has an all-Superjet fleet. Brussels Airlines, a new foreign operator for the Russian-built aircraft, wet-leases them from Irish-based CityJet. Last year, the SSJ100B-100 version with short-runway performance entered commercial operation in Europe. These aircraft are equipped with higher thrust engines.

SCAC delivered six aircraft to end users in H1 2017. The manufacturer explained at the time that a portion of the ordered airframes were expected to be delivered in the second half of the year. The company did not disclose the customers’ names, but open source data suggest that at least 13 new SCAC-built aircraft were put into operation during the half-year period: four by IrAero (RA-89075, RA-89076, RA-89077, and RA-89078), six by Yamal Airlines (RA-89068, RA-89069, RA-89070, RA-89071, RA-89072, and RA-89073), and three by CityJet (EI-FWF, EI-FWE, and EI-FWD). In the second half of the year, five SSJ100s were delivered to Aeroflot and one each to Azimuth Airlines and Yamal.

In the beginning of the previous year, the former SCAC management announced the plan to deliver up to 40 airliners annually in 2017-19, of which about 35 would be factory-new and the rest would come from the secondary market. As per the 2018 sales plan, Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov in December last year revised the figure down, from 38 to 30 aircraft.

Since the rollout of the first SSJ100 prototype 10 years ago, SCAC has built more than 150 aircraft. As of December 2017, Russian and foreign airlines and also government agencies were operating a total of over 100 Superjets. The fleet had performed in excess of 240,000 commercial flights, accumulating more than 370,000 flight hours in total.

“Overall demand in the 100-seat segment may exceed 2,300 aircraft in 2017 through 2036,” reads the manufacturer’s statement. “We expect to deliver between 170 and 180 airliners in the next five years, including in the business variant, at a rate of 35 to 40 per year.”