Diplomat: Iran, Ukraine in Final Talks on Antonov Passenger Planes’ Joint …
“Tehran and Kyiv’s negotiations on the joint production of Antonov-148 and Antonov-158 passenger planes have reached the final stages and we hope that its operational grounds will be paved by the end of the (Iranian) month of Azar (late December),” Iranian Envoy to Ukraine Akbar Qassemi told FNA.
“Based on the agreements, we will start the production of Antonov-148 with the capacity of 86 seats and Antonov-158 which will seat 96 passengers in the near future,” he said, adding that “both planes have turbo engines”.
Iran aims to fly its first Antonov-158 jointly built with the Ukrainian company as early as 2013.
The new air vehicle with a seating capacity of 100 passengers will be the next generation of Iran-140 airplane.
After purchasing the production license for the Antonov-140 from Ukraine in 2000, Iran built its first Iran-140 passenger plane in 2003.
The first IRAN-140 aircraft was introduced by Iran in 2003. Five domestically-manufactured IRAN-140 planes were completed in October 2008 to increase the country’s transportation capacity and upgrade the Iranian passenger fleet.
The IRAN-140 is a double-engine turboprop aircraft which can fly almost 1,865 miles before re-fuelling and its passenger model seats 52 people.