MC21 / MS21 - Market
MS-21 aircraft, in development as of 2014, was to replace all models of Tu-154 and Tu-134 aircraft, as well as the Yak-42 in Russia, with initial deliveries due to start in 2017.
The MS-21 plane was developed by Russia's major manufacturing companies - Ilyushin, Tupolev and Yakovlev - to replace the aging Tu-154, which currently services some 80% of Russia's passenger and freight traffic and also the Airbus A-320 and Boeing 737 aircraft. The new jet is expected to be 10-15% more efficient than the Boeing and Airbus of its class. However, its target price will be just $35 million, $20 million below that of the similarly-sized Boeing 737-700.
To maximize their competitive edge, the designers have consciously avoided the long-haul market. The market for wide-bodied passenger aircraft is dominated by Boeing and Airbus. It would be useless to compete with their latest designs, such as the Boeing-787 Dreamliner or the giant Airbus A-380, which can seat between 500 and 800 passengers.
The niche for narrow-bodied jet liners carrying 150 to 180 travelers is another matter. True, there are rival models here, too: particularly the Boeing-737, the Airbus A-320. But Airbus is set to phase out the A-320 to provide room for new orders. By the time the MS-21 is certified and airborne, A-320s will no longer be produced, leaving a gap in the market that Irkut hopes to exploit. Irkut has actively cultivated the impression of the MS-21 as the heir to the A-320, promising to make it 15% to 20% more efficient than the Airbus plane.
The problem with the MS-21 is this - its "estimated" introduction / certification date was seen as being "around" the year 2015. By that time most of the aircraft it was designed to "replace" will more than likely have been retired and scrapped. Most of Russia's leading Airlines(Aeroflot and S-7 "Sibir" etc.) will have retired their IL-86 and Tu-154 after 2012. And those Airlines won't wait for the MS-21, they will buy A-320 or B-737.
UTair and VEB Leasing signed a memorandum of intent on the first day of the MAKS-2013 airshow 27 August 2013 for the lease of 10 MS-21-300 airliners. Under the deal, the aircraft will be provided between 2018 and 2020.
The Russian deputy premier who oversees the defense and aerospace sectors called for state companies that require air transport services to be obliged to use domestically-built planes. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin made the proposal on 16 November 2013 to a government working group discussing measures to support manufacturing and sale of civil aircraft. “We are obliging private companies to buy domestic aircraft, but state companies do not do that,” Rogozin said. Russia’s civil aviation manufacturing base had all but collapsed in the past 20 years.
Russia plans to sell up to 1,000 MC-21 mid-range passenger jets within the next 20 years, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said 26 January 2015. “The Irkut company plans to sell up to 1,000 of these planes over the next 20 years and we already have 175 solid orders,” Rogozin said during a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev outside Moscow.
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