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Eastern Europe
April 26, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 16
Russia’s SuperJet still underused by local airlines
Russian medium-distance passenger aircraft Sukhoi SuperJet 100 (SSJ100) is being used more by domestic airlines, but the growth rate of its exploitation is much slower than that of foreign competing models, Vedomosti daily reported on April 25 citing internal statistics of the Rosaviatsia state aviation agency.
SSJ-100, produced by Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, had been struggling to compete with Boeing and Airbus equivalents. In 2014, the company delivered just 37 civilian airliners, compared to 124 military aircraft, but has been supported by the state since 2015.
In March 2018, Russia's President Vladimir Putin has thrown his weight behind a RUB85bn ($1.5bn) investment into a new version of SSJ100.
Reportedly, the flight times of SSJ100 increased by 9% in 2017 from 100 to 109 hours monthly or from 3.3 to 3.6 hours daily. In the meantime, the medium-distance foreign jets such as Airbus 320 and Boeing 737-800 were used for 10 and 11 hours daily, on average, respectively. Embraer E-170 also beats SSJ100 with an average of 6 hours daily.
Currently 106 SSJ100s are used in Russia and 33 abroad. Russian national carrier Aeroflot is the largest user of SSJs and in September 2018 took on the 49th jet of this category into the fleet. The share of Russian jets in the fleet is growing and now amounts to 14%.
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Ukraine’s parliament greenlights Ukrainian language bill
Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, adopted on April 25 a draft law on the Ukrainian language, which provides for the mandatory use of the national language by government agencies, local self-government and in other spheres of public life that is a set back for “rebooting” the peace process promised by Ukraine’s president- elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Zelenskiy’s position on the law is unclear. While he has said that he will protect and promote Ukrainian, he also said he has “questions” about the new language law.
The motion was supported by 278 lawmakers from a total of 450, according to news agency
Interfax. The draft law says that it is not applicable to the sphere of private communication and the implementation of religious rites. Ukrainians are allowed to talk to each other in any language they like, but all official communication must now
be in Ukrainian. Russian-language newspapers must now publish a Ukrainian version of their publication. TV and film distribution firms must ensure 90% of their content is in Ukrainian and Ukrainian-language print media and books must have at least half their content in the national language.
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