| The government has decided how to reform the aviation industry At a meeting on Friday, the government formulated a new approach to restructuring the aviation industry. Its fundamental novelty lies in the fact that it actually recognizes the primacy of the subjective interests of a person (plant director) over bare technological expediency.
At the suggestion of the General Director of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (Rosaviakosmos) Yuri Koptev, the government decided to form two multi-industry holdings, each of which will deal with military and civil aircraft, as well as helicopters. Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov did not rule out that the future fate of these holdings will be decided by natural selection. “In the end there might only be one left,” he said.
Discussions about ways of restructuring have been going on in the aircraft industry since the mid-90s, when the state order system that fed the Soviet-style aircraft industry finally collapsed. Over the time that has passed since then, a more or less generally accepted understanding has emerged that some enterprises in the industry should be closed, and the remaining ones should be grouped into large holding-type structures. But in practice, it is difficult for directors of aircraft factories and design bureaus to agree on who will report to whom in the projected association. Indicative in this sense is the history of the formation of the Sukhoi Aviation Military-Industrial Complex (AMIC) on the basis of the Design Bureau named after. Sukhoi and three aircraft factories - Novosibirsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Irkutsk. President Yeltsin issued a decree on the creation of the AVPK back in 1996. However, it has still not been possible to drive design bureaus and factories into the framework of an integrated structure. This year, President Putin had to issue another decree on Sukhoi.
Ideas that arose from time to time to merge Sukhoi with another domestic fighter manufacturer, the Russian Aircraft Corporation (RSC) MiG, met with such fierce opposition that they never progressed beyond the stage of purely theoretical discussion.
For the government meeting on May 11, Koptev prepared two options for the new structure of the aviation industry. The first provided for the unification of enterprises into six holdings according to the profile principle: fighter aircraft developers - with other “fighters”, helicopter pilots - with helicopter pilots, etc. This option has been successfully stalled in various sectors of the Russian aviation industry for the second five-year period. The head of Rosaviakosmos himself recommended the second option: to create two multi-profile aircraft and helicopter production complexes of the holding type (SVSC). SVSK-1 should include RSK MiG (combat aviation), JSC Kamov (helicopters), ASTC named after. Tupolev (passenger aircraft), technologically related aircraft factories "Aviastar-SP", "Aviakor", "Sokol", Kazan Aviation Production Association - 10 enterprises in total. Their direct competitors will be consolidated into SVSK-2. This “fighter” bush of the second holding will be the OKB named after. Sukhoi with three “its” plants (Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur), “helicopter” - Moscow Helicopter Plant named after. Mil and "Rosvertol", "passenger" - Aviation complex named after. Ilyushin and Voronezh Joint-Stock Aircraft Manufacturing Company. In total, SVSK-2 should include 15 enterprises.
With this approach, within each of the superholdings there are no directly competing teams, which otherwise would be forced to either “fight to the point of destruction” or sabotage the unification.
The government supported Koptev and even considered it necessary to speed up the implementation of his ideas. As Deputy Prime Minister Klebanov said after the meeting, Rosaviakosmos proposed to carry out the restructuring before 2010, but the government decided to complete it in 2004.
Representatives of both AVPK Sukhoi and RSK MiG are optimistic about their ability to “digest” the problems of their commercially less successful colleagues from the civilian sector. However, there are nuances in the approaches of the two firms. Director of Public Relations of the Sukhoi AVPK Yuri Chervakov told a correspondent of the Vremya Novostey newspaper that the new holding will include only those production facilities that can be loaded with the production of a competitive product. Sukhoi does not intend to take over the entire aircraft factories.
Deputy General Director of RSK MiG Andrei Mazurov, on the contrary, emphasized that MiG several years ago relied on diversifying the production of aircraft equipment. “The decision taken by the government on Friday proves that we were moving in the right direction,” he told a Vremya Novostei newspaper correspondent.
Product structure of the Russian aviation industry in 2000
Military aviation equipment and weapons -- 69.5%
Civil aviation equipment -- 13.5%
Civil products and consumer goods -- 17%
The gross volume of aviation industry products, including exports, is 73.8 billion rubles.
According to Rosaviakosmos Mikhail KUKUSHKIN |
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