The AN-140 passenger plane: whose baby is it? (10/31/99)

The AN-140 passenger plane: whose baby is it?

RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report

PRAGUE - President Leonid Kuchma and other officials on October 11 watched a test flight of a new AN-140 passenger plane. Mr. Kuchma called the plane a "modern miracle," while congratulating the Kyiv-based Antonov Design Bureau and the Kharkiv State Aviation Enterprise that designed and built the aircraft.

The plane can carry 52 passengers or 20 passengers and 3.65 tons of cargo for a distance of 2,300 kilometers at a maximum speed of 555 kilometers per hour. It is expected to cost some $7 million. Demand for the AN-140 is estimated at 100 aircraft within Ukraine and some 500 in Russia and other post-Soviet states by 2005, according to the Associated Press.

The Moscow-based Segodnya wrote on October 13 that Ukraine has "cheated its elder brother, Russia, to the full" regarding the development of the AN-140. According to the newspaper, Russia's budget has almost entirely financed the development of the plane, but Ukraine says the plane is solely its own "child" because, as Segodnya put it, Russian budget allocations do not give Moscow copyright rights. Russia has the right only to buy 70 AN-140s from Ukraine ahead of other customers, but "Segodnya" argues that Russia does not have sufficient funds to take advantage of this priority treatment.

As regards the copyright for the plane's design, they belong solely to Ukraine's Antonov Design Bureau. According to Segodnya, future Russian customers will have to pay dearly for AN-140 design charts and schemes.

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