PRAGUE (Reuters) - Aero Vodochody has sold four L-39NG training fighter jets to Senegal, the Czech company said on Wednesday, marking the once struggling firm’s first international sale of new aircraft in 20 years.

FILE PHOTO: An employee works on the assembly line in a hangar of an aircraft manufacturer Aero Vodochody near the town of Odolena Voda, Czech Republic, July 11, 2017. REUTERS/David W Cerny/File Photo

The company did not disclose the value of the deal.

The sale of the light attack version of the aircraft is the first of a series the company is seeking to close abroad after bringing in industry veteran Giuseppe Giordo as president in 2016 to help turn the company around.

“The L-39NG aircraft is the new future of Aero Vodochody,” Giordo said in a statement. “We also have two additional contracts in a very mature state of negotiation.“

During the last days of the Cold War in 1988, Aero Vodochody’s factory outside Prague in what was then Czechoslovakia produced a record 250 of its Albatros L-39 training jets for Soviet bloc air forces.

Those customers disappeared with the collapse of Communism as successive governments focused on building a market economy and steered away from arms exports, sending the industry into a tailspin. Numerous comeback attempts sputtered for Aero, which halted jet production between 2003 and 2015.

Boeing BA.N bought a stake in Aero in the 1990s but sold it back to the government after failing to land new contracts. Czech-Slovak private equity group Penta bought Aero in 2006.

Giordo has overseen the relaunch of the L-159 and has championed the next generation L-39 trainer. It aims to produce up to 26 aircraft annually over the next 10 to 15 years.

The company has also re-launched production of new parts for the L-39 — which can turn into a light version of the combat fighter at the flick of a switch.

In recent years, Aero sold its L-159 light combat aircraft to the Iraq Air Force and U.S. aviation services company Draken. Those airplanes were originally made for the Czech army in the early 2000s.