Ukrainian airline AeroSvit launched passenger service with an Antonov An-148-100 regional jet prototype on a June 2 flight between the capital Kiev and Kharkov in the northeast of the country, replacing an An-24 and a Yak-42 previously used on this route. The 70-seat regional jet was the aircraft used by Antonov to complete certification, according to a representative from Russia’s United Aircraft Corp. (OAK). Neither of the manufacturers chosen to participate in serial production– Ukraine’s Aviant and Russia’s Voronezh Aircraft Production Association (VASO)–has yet completed a production example of the high-wing jet, powered by a pair of Motor Sich D-436-148 turbofans.
Government officials took part in a ceremony marking the first revenue flight, during which Ukrainian minister for transportation and communications Yosyp Vinsky told reporters that plans call for the second An-148 to enter service by the end of this year. Antonov is displaying the AeroSvit aircraft here at the Paris Air Show.
Plans call for flights by a joint team of Antonov and AeroSvit, using two An-148-100B prototypes, UR-NTA and UR-NTB. Antonov handed over the first aircraft to state-run leasing company LizingTechTrans at the Aviasvit-XXI airshow in September last year. UR-NTB remains an asset of the Antonov design bureau.
The pair previously carried out a certification campaign completed in February 2007, when the An-148 won AP-25 type certificate from ARMAK (Air Register of Interstate Aviation Committee, an aviation authority of the Commonwealth of Independent States).
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