Ukrainian aircraft manufacturer Antonov announced that four An-178s are to be under construction in 2021, putting an end to a years-long gap in production.
According to the Ukrainian news website Liga, the company will mainly be working on three An-178s ordered by the Ukrainian government in 2020. It is going to start building an airframe for one aircraft, assemble another one, and begin manufacturing parts for the third one.
Also, an assembly of the fourth aircraft, ordered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Peru, is going to proceed as planned.
The company did not reveal whether any of the four aircraft are going to be finished this year.
Additionally, Antonov is going to modernize two An-124 Ruslans and produce spare parts for Indian An-32s. The total revenue of the company is projected to be 9.5 billion hryvnias ($340 million).
It is almost 30% more than in 2020, underlining a significant increase in production.
Before it started building Peru’s An-178 in 2019, Antonov did not manufacture a single new airplane for four years. In December 2020, the Ukrainian government signed a contract to manufacture four An-178 medium transport aircraft for the country’s armed forces between 2021 and 2024.
On January 4, 2021, the State Export-Import Bank of Ukraine agreed to provide a loan of 3 billion hryvnias (over $1 million) to the company for the manufacturing of the aircraft.