Armored presidential airliner for Fidel Castro

Mercosur
Monday, 13 March

Armored presidential airliner for Fidel Castro

Cuba is buying one of Russia's most up-to-date airliners, carefully
crafted for President Fidel Castro's personal comfort. The purchase is
part of an initial Cuban order for two brand new Ilyushin planes worth
110 million U S dollars which Russian officials say is a shot in the arm
for their struggling airline industry.

To head off criticism that a new presidential jet is an expensive luxury
in austere times, Cuba says one of its new planes is being used to ferry
workers to and from Venezuela.

To finance the deal, Cuba has paid 15% of the total sum up front, the
rest coming from a 10-year loan from Russian banks.

Russian NTV Mir television said the designers at Ilyushin had worked
hard to give Mr Castro as smooth and secure a journey as possible.

"This is a sofa bed on which he can spend his hours of rest or read a
book from his own library. Everything has been designed to be as
ergonomic as possible, with a personal reading lamp" designer Aleksandr
Kuchukhidze told the channel.

Principal interior designer Anton Nikolayev added: "Beige colours will
predominate. Business meetings and talks can be held here".

The station showed the little luxuries the president could expect: a DVD
player, drinks bar and leather seats. But security is paramount too: the
plane comes with armored cockpit doors and a system for making bombs safe.

The report showed the Ilyushin Il-96-300, built in Voronezh, being
handed over at Havana's Jose Marti airport. It said the order was one of
the biggest the Voronezh Ilyushin plant had secured this decade.

"These are the first Russian civilian aircraft to have been exported in
the last 15 years," Ilyushin finance director Aleksandr Rubtsov said.

"We are convinced that Cuba can become a springboard for exporting our
planes, above all in the countries of Latin America".

Russia and Cuba plan to sign another contract in Cuba for the supply of
a further five airliners, for an undisclosed sum. Cuba has been a key
customer of Soviet-built aircraft, whether civilian Ilyushins or
military MIGs, since the Cold War era. Even today, Cuban pilots for the
newest Ilyushins are being trained in Russia, and Ilyushin engineers are
in to Havana to school ground crews on maintaining the planes.

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