A contract for delivery of Tu-204SM aircraft will be signed by Red Wings airline (Russia) at MAKS-2013 airshow held in Zhukovsky on August 27th - September 1st 2013, Media73 reports with reference to  CEO of Regional State Public Institution “Development of Ulaynovsk Region’s Aviation Cluster”, Yuri Sarichev.

«First of all, we are expecting an order from governmental agencies – this refers to delivery of the jets to the Ministry of Defense. We also plan to assembly 10 jets for Red Wings. A total of 20 Tu-204SM aircraft should be assembled by 2017. Aviastar-SP is ready for production. At present the assembly of four jets has been completed by more than 50%. In other words it is possible to manufacture 2 or 3 vehicles in addition to the current order backlog of Aviastar», - Sarichev said.

The new Tu-204SM, manufactured by Aviastar, received supplement to the type certificate in June 2013. According to the top-managers of Aviastar-SP, the plant is ready to launch the serial production. However, Aviastar needs funds in order to start the production (about 900 million rubles are required to manufacture one Tu-204SM).

Some more agreements should be signed at MAKS-2013. First of all, the government of Ulyanovsk Region and United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) will sign an agreement on establishment of center for development of transport aircraft. Moreover, the government of Ulyanovsk Region, UAC, Aviastar-SP, Ulyanovsk State University and Ulyanovsk Aviation Cluster will sign an agreement on creation of a science park at the territory of Aviastar-SP. In addition, an agreement on cooperation with Antonov State Enterprise (Kiev, Ukraine) should also be signed.