Yamal Airlines plans to increase its fleet of Sukhoi SuperJet 100 aircraft from 9 to 25 by the end of 2018, said Ilya Lebedev, the airline’s deputy commercial director to RIA Novosti news agency.

Last summer, the press office of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region’s government stated that Yamal Airlines, whose main owner is the regional authority, will get 25 Sukhoi SuperJet 100 aircraft under a state program for the gradual replacement of the existing fleet with domestic aircraft. However, delivery dates were not announced at that time.

"Currently, we have nine Sukhoi SuperJet 100 aircraft, by May we will increased the fleet to 15 aircraft, and the total number of aircraft on order is 25. We will probably get the rest by the end of the year. Then we will have 25 new aircraft operational" said the spokesman.

The first of the new fleet was delivered in March 2016. On welcoming its arrival at Salekhard Airport, Dmitry Kobylkin, Governor of the Autonomous Region, told reporters that leasing the SSJ-100 "turns out to be twice as cheap as leasing a similar aircraft from Boeing" which, he said, will significantly ease the burden on the budget.