Antonov An-148 launch customer Scat Airlines of Kazakhstan will take its first two airplanes next month, if Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich’s declarations during an official state visit with Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev last month prove accurate. During ceremonies in the Kazakh capital Astana, the Ukrainian delegation presented their hosts with a model of the 80-seat twinjet. At press time officials from Antonov hadn’t yet given word on the status of the Ukrainian regional jet’s certification status, however, despite their expectation a month earlier that approvals would come by the end of last year.
Although one of the An-148’s largest customers with seven airplanes on order, Kazakhstan seemed one of the program’s least receptive prospects when early in the sales campaign Nazarbayev likened the Progress D436-148-powered jet to a Soviet-era automobile. The political winds have shifted since then, however, as the two countries explore possible nuclear energy cooperation and the transportation of Kazakh oil through Ukraine’s pipeline that runs between Odessa and Brody, near the Polish border.
