What Rustam Minnikhanov agreed on with Boeing
Rustam Minnikhanov have visited the factories of Boeing during his visit to the USA. Prior to that, the president of Tatarstan repeatedly met with representatives of another aircraft manufacturer — Bombardier. With the latter, the Republic has long-established close business contacts, which Tatarstan is not averse to expand. However, Tatarstan still can't boast joint projects with Boeing, although there have been attempts to discuss them. They agreed about the meeting at Sochi-2016. While it has resulted only in a more close acquaintance. Nevertheless, this visit has opened the way for future negotiations.
In the wake of Sochi agreements and Canadian experience
The visit to the United States, on the one hand, was a continuation in a series of foreign trips of Rustam Minnikhanov and meetings with investors. On the other hand, a result of the agreements achieved at the Sochi forum. At Sochi-2016, Tatarstan President held the first official meeting with the president of Boeing company in Russia and the CIS Sergey Kravchenko. Apparently, the agreements on a visit to the factories of the corporation by the president of Tatarstan were reached at this meeting.
Prior to that, Rustam Minnikhanov had a lot of communication experience with the leadership of another aircraft holding company — Canadian Bombardier. With representatives of the latter Minnikhanov met as Prime Minister. Then he held negotiations with them as President and also visited the company's production site in Montreal during his visit to Canada.
They had a lot of topics for discussion with the Canadian aircraft manufacturer. First, the Tatarstan airlines actively expanded their fleets due to small CRJ and Challenger by Bombardier production. Second, an authorized service center for maintenance of Bombardier aircrafts in the Republic opened on the territory of airports Kazan and Begishevo. Now operating UVT Aero still uses the Canadian aircrafts, inherited from AK Bars Aero.
Finally, during his last meeting with the leadership of Bombardier in their headquarters, Rustam Minnikhanov asked about the company's plans for localization of production in Russia and even offered to consider Tatarstan as a site, stating that there are all necessary conditions for that: necessary infrastructure, highly-skilled professionals, advanced logistics.
Dreams of KAPO-Composite
Tatarstan does not have and never had the established contacts with the leadership of Boeing. Before the Sochi forum this year, there had been, perhaps, the only project discussed in the Republic, and even then hypothetically. In 2013, in Kazan there opened a factory for production of composite parts for the aircraft industry KAPO-Composite. The factory was equipped for the production of composite elements of the mechanization of wing and tailplanes for Sukhoi Superjet and MS-21.
At the same time, it was also stated that in addition to the supply of parts for the United Aircraft Corporation, a possibility of production products for Boeing, Airbus is being considered. Potentially, for Boeing such cooperation could be interesting in the framework of the production of the Dreamliner, where composite materials are widely used.
However, they failed to reach concrete arrangements. One would assume that the sanctions prevented an agreement. But Sergey Korolev, director of government relations in Russia and CIS of Boeing, during his visit to Kazan told the correspondent of Realnoe Vremya that sanctions and counter-sanctions have not affected the company's work and the company does not cooperate with Russian in the field of production of parts made of a composite yet.
About how Minnikhanov inspected the factories of Boeing
However, during this visit of Rustam Minnikhanov, they talked about neither the purchase of Boeing nor the localization of production in Tatarstan. According to the press service of the president of Tatarstan, he visited the factories of Boeing in the cities of Renton and Everett.
In the head office of the factory in Renton, Rustam Minnikhanov was met by a friend from the Sochi forum — President of Boeing-Russia & CIS at The Boeing Company Sergey Kravchenko. Minnikhanov visited an assembly line of the family of narrow-body Boeing 737, which is built according to the system of lean production.
Then the delegation of the Republic of Tatarstan visited the Boeing factory in Everett. Here, the guests visited the production site of wide-body aircrafts, in particular, models of Boeing 777 and Dreamliner. After that, the plant held a briefing on the training programme. Rustam Minnikhanov also met with Russian engineers who are being trained at the Boeing plant.
Exchange of 'education' contacts
Rustam Minnikhanov, on his part, presented the Tatarstan aircraft cluster: in the capital of the Republic, there are Kazan Aviation Factory named after S. P. Gorbunov (Tu-160, etc.), Kazan Helicopters (Mi-8, Mi-17, Mi-38, Ansat, Aktai). The conversation again returned to human resources, for training of whom there is also a base. The Boeing representatives have already visited this base this spring when they came with an open lecture at Kazan National Research Technical University named after A.N.Tupolev (KNRTU-KAI). However, it turned out that no joint programmes with this aircraft giant have been planned in the near future.
This time, Tatarstan President noted that Tatarstan is interested in cooperation with Boeing in part of training programs and reminded Sergey Kravchenko of his promise to visit Tatarstan, to see the work of Innopolis SEZ, which he promised in Sochi.