Aircraft
Blue Panorama to confirm SSJ order next month
The new Western European launch customer for the Sukhoi SuperJet 100, Italy’s http://www.ainonline.com/news/single-news-page/article/superjet-100s

The new Western European launch customer for the Sukhoi SuperJet 100, Italy’s Blue Panorama Airlines, expects to convert its Paris Air Show memorandum of understanding covering 12 SSJ100s into an order for eight aircraft (plus options on four) next month, once it has reached an agreement with SaM146 engine supplier PowerJet, a Snecma/NPO Saturn Franco-Russian joint venture.

Blue Panorama chairman Franco Pecci hopes the initial eight machines will arrive before 2015; the remaining options should become firm orders in mid-2013, ahead of delivery of all four during 2015. He confirmed that export credit agencies in France, Italy and Russia will finance the aircraft, and that OEM support contracts will cover the airframes and engines. Plans call for the airplanes to come configured in a 108-passenger, single-class Aeritalia/Pininfarina “Italian Style” cabin-interior layout.