Adria Airways (Ljubljana) and Sukhoi Civil Aircraft (Zhukovsky) have signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) covering the delivery of fifteen SSJ 100/95 aircraft from early 2019 and the establishment of a maintenance, repair, and overhaul facility at Ljubljana airport.

Adria's chief executive Holger Kowarsch said that Adria had analyzed the SSJ100 for two years and had considered it to be the most suitable type for the carrier's strategic goals.

The delivery of the new SSJs delivered on long-term dry-lease agreements will allow Adria to deploy more of its Bombardier Aerospace CRJ and Airbus aircraft on ACMI services on behalf of third parties. Adria's ACMI customers currently include Austrian Airlines (OS, Vienna), Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt International), Luxair (LG, Luxembourg), and Swiss (LX, Zurich), according to the ch-aviation fleets module.

The Slovenian carrier currently operates three A319-100s, three CRJ700s, nine CRJ900s, and six Saab 2000s.

SCAC president Alexander Rubtsov added that Sukhoi had realised that the SSJ100 after-sales support in the European market would have to be "organized profoundly and professionally." Sukhoi and Adria will create a joint maintenance and repair organization for SSJ100 aircraft in Slovenia to support the operations of all SSJ100 aircraft active in Europe.

At present the only operators of the SSJ outside the CIS region are CityJet (WX, Dublin International), Interjet (AIJ, Toluca), and the Royal Thai Air Force (Bangkok Don Mueang).