Aviacor (Samara International Aviation Corporation)

Pskovskaya street, 32
443052 Samara, Russia
Tel:(8462) 29-42-78
Fax: (8462) 27-04-77

The Aviakor plant in Samara is part  of the Russian Machines corporation of Basic Element Holding of Oleg Deripaska. Over the past few years, affairs at Aviakor have not been going in the best way: the company has huge payables and does not cover its debts. The calculation of indicators of financial stability of JSC "Aviakor" indicates a very high degree of financial risk in activities of the enterprise. The critical values suggest the possibility of an extremely negative form of development ofacceptance - the possibility of bankruptcy. Over the 15 years 2000-2015 they have made 3 pieces Tu-154, and a little less than a half dozen An-140 for the Navy. Aviakor OJSC has extremely low solvency and is practically without the ability to repay current liabilities with cash, funds on current accounts and short-term financial investments, which also indicates the probability of bankruptcy of the enterprise. Aviakor OJSC is operating in the zone of catastrophic risk.

In 2003, Aviakor launched a project to produce the An-140, and in 2015 decided to suspend the production program of these machines due to the situation in  Ukraine . As Aviakor CEO Alexei Gusev noted, in Ukraine there are 34 suppliers of components for the An-140 project, as well as the head office Antonov Design Bureau.

Samara-based AVIACOR was one of largest aircraft manufacturers in Russia. The main competences of the plant are aircraft construction, overhaul and maintenance of various types of aircraft, component manufacturing. The plant has its own certified MRO center, and has experience in the field of mass production of civilian and military aircraft from parts, components and assemblies of its own production. For heroic work during the Great Patriotic War, for services in the post-war development of domestic aviation and rocket technology, the team was awarded the Orders of Lenin (December 1940), the Red Banner (July 1945), the Red Banner of Labor (December 1970).

The Corporation has a long record of experience in aircraft production. During its existence, the plant has produced more than 22,500 aircraft of various models. The plant still exists precisely because of the state's orders. For many years it was the Tu-154. Then there was an order for 15 An-140 for the Ministry of Defense.

Samara region plans to receive a project for the production of Czech aircraft L-610 on the basis of the Aviacor plant. Such information on 26 May 2016 at a meeting with a delegation from the Czech Republic was presented by the Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Industry and Technology of the Samara Region Sergey Bezrukov. This is reported by Volga News. He presented information on the industrial potential of the region. The minister outlined several areas in mechanical engineering, within which the Samara region would like to cooperate with the Czech Republic. "We are negotiating on the localization of the production of the Czech passenger aircraft L-610 on the basis of Aviakor OJSC. To do this, we will need to attract companies that will supply products for the future aircraft. Also, we are looking for partners to place Czech bearing production capacities and automotive components on the territory of the Samara region", - said Bezrukov.

The plant was founded on January 10, 1930 in the city of Voronezh. From 1932-1934 the plant built the TB-3, an all-metal 4-engine bomber. In 1937 it was used in the landing of the scientific group of Papanin at the North Pole. In 1934-1936 the plant built the ANT-25, an aircraft scout, all-metal nizkoplan. In 1937, Chkalov, Baidukov and Belyakov made a flight across the North Pole to the USA (Portland). From 1937-1941 the plant built the IL-4 long range 2-motor bomber. In 1939, Kokinaki flew from Moscow across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States on the island of Miskou. In 1941, on the night of August 7-8, they struck the first bombing of Berlin, all the planes returned to base.

In 1941, the plant was evacuated to the city of Kuibyshev. From 1941-1945 the plant built the IL-2. During the Great Patriotic War, more than any other aircraft of this type were produced (36,163 cars). The largest number of Heroes of the Soviet Union flew on these planes. During the war years, the factory team was awarded the Red Banner of the State Defense Committee twenty-six times.

From 1944-1947 the plant built the IL-10, which was in service not only in the USSR, but also in the socialist countries. In 1949, 40 IL-10 received the Polish Air Force (4th, 5th and 6th assault air regiments). In addition, the "ten" entered service with the Yugoslav, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian Air Forces.

From 1948-1953 the plant built the Tu-4 [B-29 copy]. On September 14, 1954 with the Tu-4 was dropped the first Soviet nuclear bomb at the site in Semipalatinsk.From 1953-1954 the plant built the IL-28. The reliability of the aircraft and the strength of its design have become truly legendary, there is a case when the machine, after a forced landing at sea, remained afloat for more than two hours, was towed to shore, repaired, and then continued to be used.

Series production of the aircraft designated as TU-95 -- started in January 1956 at Plant Nr. 18 in Kuibyshev, while production tests were still underway. The TU-95 was produced by Samara Aviation Production Union (APO), while the first aircraft were assembled at Taganrog machinery plant. According to Russian sources, TU-142 series production took place at the plant Nr. 18 in Kuibyshev and from the mid-1970s at Plant Nr. 86 in Taganrog. Western sources report that the production line at Taganrog reopened in 1983 to build the Bear-F and Bear-H.

From 1954-1959 the plant built the La-350 "The Tempest", an intercontinental supersonic cruise nuclear launch vehicle with ramjet engine. According to its characteristics, it was unparalleled and invulnerable to the enemy’s air defenses at that time.

From 1956-1965 the plant worked on the Tu-114, which was awarded the Grand Prix at the 1958 World Fair in Brussels, it holds 32 world records. The reliability of the aircraft was so high that in 1959 it also carried out unprecedented actions that had no analogues in the history of world aviation: the aircraft, whose operational tests were not yet completed, transported the USSR government headed by N. S. Khrushchev to Washington . The plane flew without accidents.

From 1962-1967 the plant produced the Tu-126, tThe first airborne early warning complex in the USSR was one of the most secret Soviet aircraft. The plane, built literally in single copies, but played its role in ensuring the defense of a great power.

From 1967-1974 the plant built the 11A52 N-1 Soviet superheavy 3-stage rocket for landing the 1st cosmonaut on the moon and the 1st cosmonaut on a flight around the moon. Made the 3rd stage of the rocket, riveted units on the 1st 2nd stage of the rocket. From 1986-1988 MTKK "Buran" wing units were made (Smolensk order), cab parts (Tushino order). The company describes this [rather fancifully] as "A space warship to intercept and destroy a potential enemy missile warheads using laser weapons in near-earth orbit at an altitude of 500 km. The US Soviet response to the PIO program."

In 1996, Samara regional administration granted Aviacor its guarantees for Rbs300bn for converting its production lines for new aircraft types. In the late 1990s, Aviacor suffered from a shortage of orders for the 164-seater Tu-154M airliner currently in production. As a result, the work-force was cut from 24,000 to 10,000. The cuts were supplemented by restructuring of the enterprise, and now the enterprise is the most financially stable aircraft manufacturer in Russia.

AVIACOR offers medium-range passenger airplanes Tu-154 and Tu-154-100. At present, the TU-154M aircraft is the factory's main product, with about 1,000 units produced, representing 60 percent of the air passenger transportation market of the Confederation of Independent States (CIS). Aviacor produces the Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft (most common aircraft of the Soviet era) and new Tu-154-100. In 1994-95 Aviacor sold about 20 aircraft and only 2 in 1996-97. As of 1997 approximately 20 aircraft remained on the assembly lines in various degrees of completion.

In 1996, Aviacor signed an agreement with ANTK Antonov for production of An-140 (approximate cost $6.5 million) which is supposed to gradually substitute the outdated An-24, -26, -30, -32 and Yak-40. The An-140 is the only relatively large airplane whose development began after the USSR collapsed. Since 2003 the low level of maintenance costs was an important condition for the development of the An-140. Use in conditions of high mountains, hot and cold climates, at small aerodromes, including low-equipped short runways (including unprepared ones) with low covering strength (including unpaved).

The An-140 was mentioned at a meeting on the development of aircraft industry, which was held under the leadership of the President of Russia on 12 May 2016, as one of four possible options for a regional aircraft. In fact, the An-140 is the only one of the options presented, which has been actually being produced not for the first year in Russia at Aviakor. Of course, the question of the dependence of production on the Ukrainian developer and suppliers remained topical, but in the case of implementing the An-140 import substitution program.

The larger four-engine An-70 was created under a contract from the Defence Ministry of the Soviet Union as a replacement for the Antonov An-12. Both the Russian and Ukrainian Air Forces are in the need of replacing several hundred aging An-12 and An-26 transports. Should the An-70 be put into production, Russian enterprises would produce 80% of necessary parts for the airframe and 63% those for the powerplant. Aviacor of Samara would handle final assembly. AVIANT of Kiev (the Ukraine) would produce airframe parts, TAPO of Tashkent (Uzbekistan) would manufacture wing sections, "ZMKB Progress" of Zaporozhie (the Ukraine) and UMPO of Ufa (Russia) would provide engines.

In 1996 Honeywell and stock company AVIACOR, a leading Russian producer of commercial aircraft, announced that they had signed a Strategic Alliance Agreement for the purpose of using Honeywell avionics on AVIACOR-produced aircraft. The agreement was signed at the Asian Aerospace '96 Air Show and Exhibition. In addtion, Honeywell is working with Aviacor in building the Tu-334 (100-seater prototype and the main Russian competitor of Ukrainian An-70) and has submitted a request in for financing with ExImBank. Honeywell will also support the program of upgrading avionics on a large fleet of Aviacor-produced older generation aircraft.

AVIACOR also provided tooling to Boeing. Negotiations were in progress to produce B-737 and B-757 for Boeing,, but these talks led nowhere.

AVIACOR-SERVICE, a daughter company of AVIACOR with a network of regional technical centers, agencies in customer airlines, has been created specially for current maintenance and repair of airplanes produced by AVIACOR.

The Samara regional court ruled the plant to be insolvent on September 16, 1994. Its outstanding debt to creditors is worth more than 200 billion rubles most of which are owed to commercial banks. The court of arbitration suspended all bankruptcy proceedings and appointed external management. The council of creditors appointed Lev Khasis, manager of the Samara subsidiary of AvtoVazbank, to the post of acting manager. In April 1996, the Samara regional arbitration court stopped proceedings on Aviacor's insolvency. The company ended 1997 with a "break-even" balance which is a positive sign.

The Siberian Aluminum Financial-Industrial group bought a controlling stake in Aviacor in 1998. Twelve out of 17 seats in the Aviacor's board of directors went to SibAl on June 23, 2000. The board of directors also comprises representatives of AvtoVazbank, the Perspektiva-Plus Investment Company, the Class scientific-technological center and Aviacor. Aviacor's largest sister enterprise is Aviacor-Aviation Plant. Other sister companies include Aviacor-mebel, Mikron, Aviakor-servis, Aviacor-remont. Aircraft accounted for only a half of all orders that were placed with Aviacor in 2000. It enters into the holding "Russian Machines", which unites the machine-building active memberships of group "Basic Element".

In August 2015 of this year, due to the lack of orders, the plant on the website of the Ministry of Industry of the Samara Region posted an announcement that the plant is ready to offer its services for the production of various orders of the aviation and non-aviation profile. The absence of orders had a negative impact on the financial position of the company. The plant was already switching to a shorter working week. A number of company employees told the newspaper that the workers of the aviation plant were transferred to a three-day week with the possibility of going out on additional days if there was urgent work.

Employees confirm that the reason for the release of labor is the lack of orders from the plant. “The enterprise’s problems began as early as July. Then about 30% of Aviakor’s workers were not in demand because of the suspension of the An-140 production. In anticipation of a large order from the Ministry of Defense, it was decided to use them in the temporary employment program.

In 2017, the Moscow Arbitration Court ordered the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation to pay “Aviakor” 200 million rubles. According to the materials of the case, in 2013, a government contract was concluded between the department and the company for the manufacture and supply of An-140 aircraft for the needs of the Naval Aviation of the Russian Navy  . However, the aircraft were delivered to the customer with a delay of the dates specified in the contract.

In 2017, the Ministry of Defense sued four lawsuits against Aviakor for the termination of the state contract and the recovery of penalties for late execution of the stages of development work totaling more than 1.5 billion rubles. On 08 August 2018 the Moscow Arbitration Court refused to allow the Russian Defense Ministry to satisfy the claim to the Aviakor plant in Samara to terminate the state contract and recover a penalty in the amount of about 1.5 billion rubles. This is stated in the materials of the court files.

In 2018 plant manager Alexey Gusev was accused under Part 2 of Art. 201 of the Criminal Code "Abuse of authority, entailing serious consequences." According to the investigation, acting against the interests of the plant, Gusev illegally ordered an advance on the state contract with the  Russian Defense Ministry to supply nine AN-140 airplanes, partially paying the costs of other government contracts of the Ministry of Defense, as well as investing them in promissory notes of various banks and placing on deposits. According to the investigation, because of the actions of the director of the plant, the state contract was not executed on time, and the Ministry of Defense did not deliver five aircraft, which caused damage to 1.3 billion rubles.

Gusev himself explained the non-fulfillment of the terms of the contract by objective reasons. The fact is that the decree of March 15, 2014 No. 302-8T / 2014 of the President of Ukraine imposed a ban on the supply to Russia of dual-use and military goods, after which the Ukrainian contractors of the plant refused to supply the components necessary for the manufacture of aircraft.