The Ukrainian State Enterprise “Antonov” on Monday allowed Defence Blog’s reporters to visit the company’s international cargo airport and testing facility in Gostomel.
The airport is owned by the Antonov aircraft manufacturing company and operated by its subsidiary Antonov Airlines. Gostomel Airport (also known as Hostomel Airport) is the main base for AN-124 Ruslan and AN-225 Mriy heavy cargo aircraft, also this is and testing facility of all new aircraft that developing by Antonov.
This airfield using as a test site for the newly developed and manufactured aircraft and it is equipped with special equipment for it (e.g., artificial lightning generator) and grants a purpose test flight zone.
The Antonov’s facility in Gostomel has one operational runway, 15/33 at 11,483 ft (3,500 m) with a parallel taxiway.
Today, the company has unique solutions, without any analogs in Russian or former CIS countries. The marketing plan of the State Enterprise “Antonov”, which is part of the State Concern “Ukroboronprom”, involves manufacturing of at least 70 aircraft in the next 5 years.
A clear marketing plan was developed for “Antonov”, basing on specialist assessment, forecasts of independent experts and leading companies. It takes into account promising markets and the potential of each product range in these markets, relying on current arrangements with partners.
For example, according to the marketing plan, the capacity of the world market for medium-sized transport aircraft is estimated at 900 aircraft in the next 15 years. Therefore in 5 years, Antonov is planning to provide 20 AN-178 aircraft for customers from CIS, Asia, Africa and Turkey. SE “Antonov” also plans to return to the competitive market of regional passenger aircraft.
Now the company is working actively in the organization of e Antonov’s AN-132 jointly manufacture with Saudi industry and is negotiating bilateral agreements with Turkey and UAE for developed new AN-77 and AN-188 multi-purpose transport aircraft.
