Hawker Siddeley Trident 1978, 117 Tridents had been produced. BEA's successor British Airways withdrew its Tridents by the mid-1980s. Trident services ended in China in the early 1990s. In 1953, as British European Airways (BEA) introduced the world's first turboprop-powered civil airliner – the Vickers Viscount – into passenger service, the operator was already considering what would be required of a potential successor. Following the entry into service of jet airliners in 1952, many airline managers and economists remained sceptical and advocated turboprop airliners as replacements of piston-engined airliners. In 1953, while several manufacturers across the world were investing in pure jet-powered aircraft,
United Aircraft Corporation The Tu-204 was succeeded by its variant, the Tu-214. The Ilyushin Il-114 is a turboprop, narrow-body regional airliner developed to replace the Antonov An-24, which most were in service of Aeroflot. However, only 20 were built so far, and only two airlines were using it, so the Il-114's production was temporarily ceased. The Sukhoi Superjet 100 is the first airliner and regional jet airliner that is developed and exported under the UAC brand, by which it was developed by Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, a branch of the UAC. The Sukhoi Superjet 100 was designed to compete with the Antonov An-148, Embraer