The shareholders of United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) have reshuffled top management at the corporation’s key subsidiaries involving passenger and cargo aircraft. The conglomerate has named Ravil Khakimov president of Irkut and Sukhoi Civil Aircraft (SCAC), with a declared intention of forming a civil aviation division of UAC. Until recently, Khakimov led the aviation department of Russia’s Ministry for Industry and Trade.

“The experience that Ravil Khakimov amassed during materialization of big governmental projects in the aviation industry and the many years he spent working in different companies of the aviation industry will be handy in his new job, that [is] to unite [various UAC] civil businesses and create a workable control structure, as well as to optimize available resources and improve effectiveness of the aftersales and customer support systems having to do with Russian civil aviation,” UAC said in an April 4 statement.

The shareholders also relieved Alexei Rogozin of all positions he held at UAC, while praising him for his role in integrating Ilyushin, VASO, Aviastar-SP, UAC-Transport Aircraft, Myasishchev, and four aircraft repair plants into a single entity under the name of Ilyushin. The organization Rogozin formed will provide a basis for the formation of UAC’s Transport Aviation division, involving airlifters and freighters. Yuri Grudinin, formerly head of TANTK, will lead that division.

Meanwhile, Alexander Roubtsov steps down as SCAC president and takes the new position of UAC’s civil aviation division vice president for sales, marketing, and aftersales support. He will focus on promotion, sales, and services for the Superjet, MC-21, CR929, and Il-114.

UAC’s statement stressed that the civil aviation division will assume a unitary structure for marketing, sales, and services for all in-production and future aircraft types, meaning the corporation will ensure licenses and certificates remain in force while the new division undergoes formation.

Earlier, Roubtsov advocated creating a joint customer support system for the Superjet and MC-21 by extending the functionality of SCAC’s existing facilities. As such, the company will keep parts for the MC-21 in warehouses used for the SSJ100, both operational and under construction. Further “synergies” will come from the use of common software and procedures. As a first step in that direction, new maintenance workshops expected to open at Moscow-Sheremetyevo Airport in 2020 will house six SSJ100s and two to three MC-21s at a time, affording Russian flag carrier Aeroflot effective aftersales support from the manufacturer. Separately, Roubtsov proposed a single brand for all of UAC’s passenger types, eventually dropping the Sukhoi, Tupolev, Ilyushin, Irkut, and other company designations. “That would be better from the marketing point of view,” he explained.

In November 2018, the Kremlin handed over a 92 percent stake in UAC to Rostec, whose head, Sergei Chemezov, told journalists that recently imposed U.S. sanctions had forced a delay of MC-21 serial production. To overcome those and other new difficulties and keep its major programs going, UAC needs additional investment of 250 billion rubles ($3.82 billion). Rostec has committed to investing 50 billion rubles by 2025 into the MC-21 program and expects the Kremlin to provide the remainder.