Arie Egozi  -  Ynet News

 

Senior officials in the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and South Korea were discussing plans for the building of two passenger planes.

 

Secret communications were taking place in Israel and Seoul, and were expected to continue in the coming weeks in an effort to reach an agreement. The IAI’s civil division tried in the past to integrate in several projects fro passenger planes, but so far it has not succeeded.

 

Communication between senior officials from the IAI and the South Korean aerospace industries (KAI) focused mainly on the development and manufacture of two plane models, one for 8-10 passengers and another for 50-100 passengers.

 

The IAI’s engineering factory was expected to plan the planes or large parts of them, after which the two entities would split the manufacture of the planes.

 

The connection between the two aerospace industries was formed after Israel sold several advanced weapon systems to South Korea. The South Koreans pointed out that the industry had much experience with regards to obtaining licenses for operating aircraft.

 

The IAI has obtained relatively quick licenses for is executive planes in the past, mainly from the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Those planes were currently being manufactured by Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation in the US.

 

One of the competitors in the plane manufacturing field was expected to be Brazil, which recently entered the small/medium sized plane manufacturing industry and took the market by storm.

 

Reprinted with permission of   Ynet News