Testing of the second Russian MC-21-300 aircraft will start at the end of February or the beginning of March, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin wrote in Facebook.

"The first jet in the MC-21-300 family has already made 33 test flights and a second jet, the assembly of which is nearing completion at the Irkutsk aircraft factory [Irkut], will join the trial tests in at the end of February or in early March", he wrote.

"The Irkutsk factory is getting ready to streamline the manufacturing of the MC-21-300 jets, the newest Russian airliners, in 2019," Rogozin added.