The airfield of the world-famous Ruslan, Mriia, and other ANs, the creation of aircraft designer Antonov, was destroyed in the first days of the war. Mriia, the largest aircraft in the world, unique and unique, has been destroyed. The management of the air complex assessed the damage and named a preliminary amount for restoration — $ 1 billion.
What needs to be restored in the first place: infrastructure, laboratories, and flight test facilities in order to be able to upgrade and create new aircraft models. The An-178, An-132, An-32P aircraft are built at the same facilities. It is necessary to restore the hangars explicitly designed for servicing the An-124 Ruslan and An-225 Mriia.
"Unfortunately, the war is not over yet, so we do not name specific numbers. For example, there is no access to non-mined and neutralized airfield facilities in Gostomel. However, we can consider market prices for work and materials and preliminarily estimate how much money is needed to restore the airfield in Gostomel. For the airfield reconstruction, about $0.5 billion is needed," Viktor Avdeev, acting deputy general director for operations and administration at Antonov.
It is worth emphasizing that the mentioned amount will hardly cover only the restoration of infrastructure. Aircraft restoration and, in Mriia's case, building from scratch is another expense.
"We are talking about investments in the restoration of the airfield. This amount does not include the costs of restoring the fleet of aircraft damaged due to the occupation of Gostomel by Russian troops. More than $1 billion worth of damage has been caused. There is no living space left at the airfield, whose area is approximately 400 hectares," Evhenyy Gavrilov, general director of Antonov.
Today, investors from Europe, the USA, and several Asian countries are interested in investing in the restoration of the Antonov airfield and the air fleet.
"We need to build a terminal that will allow creating a cargo hub in Gostomel. It will be used primarily by Antonov Airlines. We want to increase the airline's attractiveness by expanding the range of its services and using the aircraft fleet more efficiently for international flights. Part of the storage space will be offered for rent to other cargo airlines."
