The Airbus concern does not advise the Antonov state enterprise (Kiev) to compete with the A400M military transport aircraft with its An-70 transport aircraft, the CFTS reports.
"There will be no equivalent in the world, not in Ukraine or even in America. It is a fantastic airplane we injected a lot of money and effort because it was very complex aircraft to develop. It is capable of performing many tasks. I hope that Antonov will lead in some market shares in some segments, but they'd better not try to compete with us," the Airbus consortium’s head Fabrice Brégier said during the conference Airbus Innovation Days in Toulouse.
The An-70 is a military transport airplane. In terms of its characteristics, it is superior to similar airplanes existing today, including the Airbus A400M, compared with which it is twice cheaper to purchase and operate. The An-70 has a maximum load-carrying capacity of 47 tons (compared with the Airbus A400M’s declared 37 tons) and a cargo compartment with a volume of 425 cubic meters (340 cubic meters for the Airbus A400M). The Airbus A400M costs EUR 145 million while the An-70 costs USD 67 million.
According to estimates by European experts, the market demand for air transport over the next ten years is 900 new cargo airplanes of the following types: An-124-100M-150, AN-70, C-17, and A400M.
