
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 29, 1990                   TAG: 9003290249
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A13   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

SOVIET AIRLINE TO BUY JET ENGINES FROM GE

The Soviet national airline, Aeroflot, has agreed to buy jet engines from General Electric Co., the first time Western-made commercial aircraft engines have been sold to the Soviet Union, GE said Wednesday. The company said the sale could be worth as much as $150 million to GE.

The Soviet purchase comes on top of $131 million in orders from state-owned airlines in Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Poland. In addition, Romania's state airline signed a letter of intent two years ago to buy GE engines, made at Evendale, Ohio, and the Malev Hungarian is negotiating to lease Boeing 737s with GE engines.

All the engine orders are for planes being purchased either from American manufacturers or the Western European consortium, Airbus Industrie.

GE officials said the Aeroflot sale opens the door to further sales to the Soviet airline, the world's largest with a fleet of more than 3,000 planes and an annual passenger load of about 130 million, mainly on its extensive domestic routes.

"We are very excited about this order," said David R. Morrison, director of European sales for GE Aircraft Engines. "We've built a strong presence in Eastern Europe over the past several years, and adding Aeroflot to our customer list really solidifies our position."

Together, GE said these orders give it a firm foothold in Eastern Europe for future sales, especially if the airlines use their common equipment to form pools to share spare engines and technical expertise.

Aeroflot is upgrading its fleet, which currently includes only Soviet-made planes.

Under U.S. export-control rules, maintenance of the engines and other sensitive technology on the planes will have to be done in the West, probably at a Lufthansa maintenance center in West Germany.

by CNB