Tupolev and Aviastar are formally merged by Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin

Published: 7/8/1999

The Tupolev aircraft design bureau aircraft has been formally merged with the Aviastar aircraft plant in order to streamline aircraft production. Sergei Stepashin, Prime Minister, signed the merger, made under a government resolution. It follows the plans of much of the aerospace industry to create unitary aerospace entities through the vertical integration of all aspects of the production process. In the past, the design bureaux simply distributed the manufacturing work to a production plant with instructions to build. Manufacturing and design processes were kept largely separate. It is believed that the new single approach will considerably ease the process of conception and production, and so alleviate the tensions between the design houses and the plants. Aviastar will now build all of Tupolev's designs. For Concise, the idea of unitary companies emerging from the rubble of the Russian aerospace industry is an enticing one, but the changes of structures have to be matched with streamlining the management process and bringing the large bureaux into line, in terms of manpower and potential projects. While the system of handing out work to the plants was inefficient and run with little regard to commercial considerations, it should also be remembered that western manufacturers have developed businesses involving heavy subcontracting out of assemblies to contractors with technical capability in those areas, for central assembly by the prime contractor. In Russia, integration should be a move towards greater efficiency, rather than a step back to manufacturing inflexibility, utilising plants ill-suited to the tasks they are given, simply because they are part of one or other of the aerospace groups. The TU-204 airliner, manufactured by Aviastar, has orders for nine aircraft by the end of 1999, according to a company spokesman. Three of these are for the Egyptian leasing company, Sirocco, and six for unspecified Russian airlines. Trans European Airlines, a Moscow based charter carrier, recently took delivery of an aircraft at what are rumoured to be very advantageous terms. Six of the aircraft will be built at Aviastar and the rest at the plant in Kazan, although reports from the plants claim that the aircraft have already been built and simply await fitting out for delivery.

Article ID: 667