The Tu-214 medium-range passenger aircraft has been produced in Kazan since 1995 in single copies for government services. By the end of 2030 Kazan Aircraft Plant should build 115 aircrafts, and from 2027 the enterprise should roll out of the final assembly shop 20 aircrafts annually. To solve such an ambitious task, the Russian government decided to allocate 41.8 billion rubles from the National Welfare Fund for the Tu-214 programme. A modern line for in-line assembly of aircrafts will be installed in the new final assembly shop. Vadim Korolev, Managing Director of PJSC Tupolev, told Business Online in an interview.
Modernisation of the Kazan aircraft plant to reach the planned volumes of Tu-214 production is being carried out under an accelerated scheme. Within its framework, two new shops will be built: a machining shop, where more than 100 machining centres will be installed for manufacturing of Tu-214 parts, and an assembly shop, which will be attached to the final assembly shop, which is currently under construction – on the photo.
“We are charged with not slowing down the pace of work, so due to the time it takes to organise the receipt of FNB funds, the initial stage of financing is filled with loans. Then they will be compensated by the FNB money. I remind you that in June, at a meeting with Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, it was talked about two stages of financing – allocation of funds from the National Wealth Fund and a bonded loan,” Korolev said.
Earlier, they were talking about 42 billion of borrowed funds. Now, according to the head of Tupolev, two programmes have been combined: the production of 10 aircraft from 2025 and 20 Tu-214 aircraft per year from 2027. In total, these volumes require more than 90 billion roubles.
The new production areas of the final assembly shop will be equipped with modern equipment, here will be organised an inline line of non-staple assembly. The Tu-214 will be assembled on the same principle as at the Irkutsk Aviation Plant, where the MC-21 is assembled, at Aviastar in Ulyanovsk for the IL-76MD-90A and in Lukhovitsy for the IL-114-300.
“We are working hard, but there are delays. Firstly, it is not easy to accelerate due to the throughput capacity of KAZ: previously it made an average of one and a half Tu-214s per year, and now the task is to grow by an order of magnitude. Secondly, the scheme of resource allocation for scaling up production can be called unique, so the formation of the relevant rules took more time than originally expected. This affects the timing of technical re-equipment, both for us and, as far as I understand, for our co-operation. Now the necessary measures have been worked out, and the money has been allocated,” explained Vadim Korolev.
