Things in the Sky

Well here’s almost-Farnborough news. The press release was issued from there a day before the the show officially started. Bombardier wants to generate interest over the course of the week, I’m sure.

Like many things in this industry, the story of Bombardier’s CSeries reads almost like a soap opera. The Canadian company’s attempts to enter the 100+ seat market started awhile ago. First, it considered purchasing Fokker after that company had financial trouble. Then it considered the BRJ-X (Bombardier Regional Jet eXpansion) but decided to stretch the CRJ series instead. Then the CSeries was announced in 2004. Then it was cancelled in 2006 and the CRJ-1000 was the new focus, but then the CSeries restarted in 2007. Finally, the series was launched after Lufthansa signed a letter of intent (LOI) expressing interest in 30 aircraft and 30 options.

Regional aircraft have changed a great deal the past few years. Mainly, they’ve gotten bigger as the manufacturers see a smaller 50-seat market than in the past. Embraer launched the very successful E-Jet line of the E-170, E-175, E-190, and E-195, which depending on the aircraft model and airline, hold anwhere from 70-120 people.

This new series blurs the line between a regional aircraft and a mainline aircraft even more, in my opinion. The Cseries is a bit above the E-Jet level in terms of capacity, at least based on the proposed layouts that Bombardier has published (110 Layouts, 130 Layouts). So this series can hold anywhere from 100 to 145 people, which makes it competitive with the larger E-Jets but also the 717-200 (I could see Hawaiian using the CSeries as a replacement for the 717 one day), 737-300, 737-500, 737-600, 737-700, A318, and A319. Many airlines wish to get rid of the 737 classics like the -300 and  -500 and the older Airbus narrowbodies, so there is some good potential here.

The number of seats is also a good way for Bombardier to avoid some competition. I say that because the biggest version of the Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 holds about 100 passengers in a one class configuration, and the new Chinese ACAC ARJ21 is slated to hold a bit more than 100 passengers.

Bombardier will offer an ER (extended range) version of both aircraft and an XT (extra thrust) version of the 130 variant as well. You can see the specs for the 110 here, the 130 here, and click on this link for the program’s homepage.

On a related topic, I wonder what the regional market would be like today if the Dornier 728 was ever completed.

It will be interesting to see if they are any more orders for this aircraft this week for sure.