A report in the Financial Times Deutschland quotes aerospace executive Andreas Sperl as saying that Airbus is nearly ready to launch a joint venture with two Russian companies to build a freighter version of their popular A320 passenger aircraft.

"By the end of May, the project's financing and the German-Russian company's new structure should be wrapped up," Sperl told the FTD.

The corporate structure named the Airbus Freighter Conversion would include a 32 percent stake for Elbe Flugzeugwerke, where Sperl is director and which is owned by Airbus' parent company EADS. Airbus would own another 18 percent. And two Russian companies, United Aircraft Corporation and Irkut, would each own 25 percent. Airbus will invest $100 million in the conversion program.

The first prototype aircraft is to be ready in 2011. One client has already expressed an interest in 30 of the planes, Sperl told FTD. The estimated average conversion price to change a pax A320 to a freighter is about $4.5 million, company spokeswoman Mary Anne Greczyn told Air Cargo World.