Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt International) has expressed an interest in the MC-21 regional liner being developed by Russia's Yakovlev Aircraft Corporation (YAK, Moscow Sheremetyevo) and Irkut Corporation Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has disclosed.

Speaking in Gorki Leninskiye this week, Rogozin said the Germans were among an undisclosed number of foreign buyers that have shown an interest in the aircraft which has so far garnered 175 orders from Aeroflot, Crecom Burj Resources, Nordwind Airlines, VEB Leasing, the Ilyushin Finance Co., Rostec, IrAero, Transaero Airlines, UTair, and Red Wings Airlines.

The 212-seater jet is scheduled to enter revenue service in 2017 and though it has been developed and built in Russia, the MC-21 will feature Western avionics with a choice of either PW1000G or Aviadvigatel PD-14 engines. Marketing claims the jet will be 10-15% more efficient than comparable Airbus and Boeing aircraft.

In the long term, Irkut is looking to sell up to one thousand of the aircraft over the next twenty years, the deputy prime minister added.

The recent imposition of economic and financial sanctions in response to Russia's involvement in the ongoing Ukrainian crisis has forced the country to turn inwards in the hopes of weathering the storm. Moscow has announced ambitious programmes to reactivate production of Tu-204/Tu-214 and Il-114 aircraft while promoting the sales of the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft SSJ 100/95 and the upcoming MC-21 through generous government subsidies.

“By 2018 or 2019, we will begin seriously squeezing out foreign-produced aircraft from our domestic market,” Rogozin added.

Russia's latest jet offerings have struggled to gain traction internationally with Belgium's VLM (1992) the only Western European operator to have committed to the Sukhoi SuperJet recently. Alitalia has in the past been linked to a possible Superjet order by hopeful Alenia Aermacchi executives though nothing substantive has come of those reports.

During a meeting of the Russian-Indian Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technical and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC) in Moscow last year, Russia floated a proposal to assemble Sukhoi Superjets and Irkut MC-21s in India in a move which, if successful, would give the Russians a foothold into the lucrative Asian market.