Published: 7/24/1998

The average daily flight utilisation of ARIA's Il-96-300 has reached 13 hours, the airline's general director, Valery Okulov has said, which compares very well with the world-average for modern airliners. Confident that Russian aircraft manufacturers can design and build airliners to the world's best standards, Federal Aviation Service director, Gennady Zaitsev says that "airliners of this class will be most profitable for Russian airlines." It was reported at the meeting that over the five years of operation, a considerable increase has been achieved in the reliability of Russia's main aviation engine, the PS-90A. These engines are installed not only on the Il-96s, but also on the medium-range Tu-204s, the modified Il-76s and the newly developed Tu-330. General designer of the Perm-based Aviadvigatel stock company, Alexander Inozemtsev, declared that "after five years of operation, we have succeeded in making the engine operate for 8,000 hours without taking it off the wing for overhaul." Inozemtsev recalled that at the outset, the engine's operational life amounted to a mere 500 hours. At present Aeroflot has six Il-96-300 airliners which undertake scheduled and charter flights to 25 cities in 16 countries, including San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Miami, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Seoul, Hanoi, and Bangkok. Okulov also said that because of the country's current economic problems, ARIA will only receive the Il-96M with American engines and avionics in the year 2001.(AL798.6) (VZ)    

Article ID: 219