Vadim Razumovsky, Deputy Director General of Sukhoi, joined Russia Today at the MAKS air show to comment on the future of the Sukhoi Super Jet 100 plane.

Russia Today: One thing we have been talking about a lot today is the Sukhoi SuperJet 100, which is your passenger plane. How does a sale of military aircraft fit in with your company’s desire to become more a part of civil aviation?

Vadim Razumovsky: Well, traditionally we are a military aviation company. We have been in the business for ages. We have developed a specific school of thought and design in military aviation, so without any doubt we will continue to develop the military aspect of our sales programme. But in addition to that we are also developing the commercial part of our business to become a more well-rounded, full service, full for-the-client type of manufacturing company. So we are offering the Sukhoi Super Jet 100 regional aircraft. We hope to have good news on that part during MAKS 2007, but it so happened that today, the first sale, of our company at least, was a military fighter.

RT: Ok, let’s stick with the SuperJet 100, because we have been hearing a lot about that. This regional aircraft which you want to introduce to the Russian market and hopefully abroad has a lot of competition, some direct competition with the Boeing 737, the Airbus A320. What's new that it's going to bring to the market?

V.R.: Well, actually we come in a little below the capacity of the Boeing 737 and Airbus A318. We are roughly into a 100 passengers capacity, so the competition in that segment is also very strong. But we are very confident that we are developing a superior product. The design concept called for 10% to 15% savings to airlines in whatever: purchase price, servicing costs, noise ratio etc. We are pretty sure that the new engine we are developing for this aircraft will carry us well into the 21st century. Actually this is the first regional aircraft developed in the 21st century, and we are pretty confident in it.

RT: Have you managed to score any orders or are we just going to have to wait?

V.R.: We are close to a  hundred orders now. We hope, fingers crossed, to have some more news during MAKS. We are pretty confident of that.