Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Feb.15 / Trend, D. Azizov /
The Reconstruction and Development Fund of Uzbekistan (FRDU) will allocate a loan worth $106.93 million to Uzbekistan's national airline Uzbekiston Havo Yullari (Uzbekistan Airways), to finance the purchase of the first of two Boeing-767-300ER aircraft and reserve engines for them, a source at the airline told Trend on Wednesday.
According to the agency's source, in February the government took a decision approving the allocation of the FRDU loan. Under the terms of the document, the loan will be refinanced through the National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity of Uzbekistan.
As was reported earlier, in 2007-2008, the Uzbek airline signed contracts with Boeing to purchase four Boeing 767-300ER aircraft and two Boeing 787-800 Dreamliner aircraft, as well as signing a deal with Airbus Industrie to purchase 10 A-320-200 aircrafts worth $1.027 billion. The cost of the contract with Boeing amounts to $577.5 million.
Purchase of new equipment for the airline is funded by Uzbekistan Airways (10 per cent of the total cost), through a loan from the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan (50 per cent) and loans from foreign banks (40 per cent).
Uzbekistan Airways has made advance payments for the delivery of four Boeing-767-300ER aircrafts and reserve engines to the sum of $88.98 million. As was reported earlier, Uzbekistan Airways received the first of these aircraft in February 2012.
According to the airline, two Boeing-767-300ER aircrafts will arrive in 2012 and 2013. Date of delivery of Boeing 787-800 Dreamliner aircrafts is not known
A contract to deliver 10 А-320-200 aircraft purchased from Airbus Industrie was completed in December 2011.
The company's fleet now comprises 28 aircraft of western production. In particular there are 10 Boeing (four 767-300, five 757-200 and one 767-300ER), 13 Airbus (three A-310 and 10 A-320-200), three medium-range RJ-85 and two cargo airbus A300-600F.
In 2011, the airline increased passenger transportation by 7.2 per cent compared to 2010 - up to 2.322 million passengers whilst cargo traffic amounted to 48,200 tons.
Uzbek airline flies to 21 countries in Europe, the U.S. and Middle East, Asia and 22 cities in the CIS countries and 11 domestic routes.