Official says Russia to sell Be-200 planes to Chile, US, India

LE BOURGET, France, Jun 18 (PRIME) -- Russia plans to deliver seven Beriev Be-200 Altair amphibious aircraft to Chile in 2020, start deliveries to a U.S. company in 2020–2021 and can sign documents to start sales to India, CEO of producer Ilyushin Yury Grudinin told reporters on the sidelines of the Le Bourget trade fair on Tuesday.

“We have signed two planes more with Chile today. We had a contract for five planes and now we have added two on their request,” Grudinin said, adding that financing will be done with participation of Russian banks.

Grudinin said that the agreements with U.S. company Seaplane Global Air Services for 10 aircraft were already signed and financing is to be made in September.

The agreements with several Indian customers are to be signed during the trade fair, he said. “We are working with several customers now, and we see very interesting dynamics of advancement.”

According to the official, the Southeast Asian countries can acquire Be-200, the negotiations with some of them are at an advanced stage.

He separately said that change of engines from Ukraine-made to Russian-French ones was postponed.

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