Irkutsk aviation plant (IAP - division of Irkut Corporation) started the production of the first batch of large parts for short- medium-haul MS-21 aircraft, Business-TASS reports.

The journalists had a chance to get acquainted with the IAP’s workshop, where development prototypes of the airframe’s components are manufactured. The corporation keeps its schedule for production of MS-21 aircraft, which should replace Tu-154 and Tu-204 Family jets at the Russian market. The jet should perform its maiden flight in the second half of 2015 and the deliveries will be started in 2017.

"In the network of the production of MS-21 we must complete the upgrade of the assembly by 2014-2015", - CEO of IAP, Alexander Veprev said. At that it is planned to separate the production of civil aircraft from the production of military ones (Su-30 fighters, Yak-130 operational trainers).

"We have already started the construction of a new workshop intended for assembly of military vehicles", - Veprev noted. We will reconstruct and redesign the old workshops, where the assembly line made by DURR Systems will be installed in order to launch the production of MS-21.

The director assessed the project for upgrading the production at $200 million. These funds are obtained in the network of the credit line with a total amount of $1 billion opened by Sberbank for Irkut in 2011, vice-president of Sberbank, Vladimir Yashin explained. According to him, the credit funds may fill only 30-40% of the financial gap of the MS-21 project; they are complemented by the enterprise’s own funds and budget financing. "The limit of the line of credit for the enterprise is $2 billion, but if more funds are required the bank would support the project", - Yashin assured.