Soviets Buy French Jets; Cost Put at $310 Million

In its first purchase of Western commercial aircraft, the Soviet airline Aeroflot has ordered five Airbus A-310-300 wide-bodied jets, Airbus Industrie said today.

Officials of Airbus, a Western European aircraft manufacturing consortium, declined to disclose the value of the order. Aircraft industry sources said the contract is worth about $310 million.

Airbus Managing Director Jean Pierson said the Aeroflot order represents “the new kind of relations between Eastern Europe and Western Europe.”

State-owned Aeroflot also has taken an option to buy five additional Airbus jets, Airbus officials said. Each plane can carry 195 passengers.

The planes will be delivered between November, 1991, and June, 1992, and will be used for Aeroflot’s flights between the Soviet Union and the Far East, Europe and North America.

Alexander Aksenov, the Soviet Union’s civil aviation vice minister, told reporters in Toulouse that Aeroflot is holding talks with Western European airlines on a maintenance contract for the new jets.

A full maintenance base in the Soviet Union would be uneconomical for such a small number of planes, he said.

Aeroflot must still choose between General Electric or Pratt and Whitney engines to power the aircraft.