"The CRJ1000 EuroLite was designed to help minimize weight-related charges for European operators who need a short- to medium-range jet. Some operators have expressed an interest in the EuroLite and one has already ordered it," confirms a Bombardier spokeswoman.

So who is the customer? Bombardier isn't telling just yet. Orders for the CRJ1000 stand at 39 aircraft and customers include Adria Airways, Air France subsidiary Brit Air, Italian operator Myair and an undisclosed operator.

Check out the key differences in the three CRJ1000 variants below.

Aircraft Model	Engine	Seating Capacity	MTOW	Range
CRJ1000EL	GE CF34-8C5	100	85,968lb	1,030
CRJ1000	GE CF34-8C5	100	90,000lb	1,488
CRJ1000ER	GE CF34-8C5	100	91,800lb	1,688
ER = Extended Range EL = EuroLite 100 pax @ 200lb, with optional -8C5A2 engine

Okay, so you've seen reports today that US Airways is banning movies on its domestic flights, and you're wondering: "For the love of God and all that is holy, how cheap can they get? Free water is, after all, down the toilet.

The drop-down IFE systems on the carrier's 200 Airbus A320 family aircraft will be removed. US Airways never had IFE on its 737s (which number about 80) so there is no love lost there.

The move only affects 10% of US Airways' North American flights since the carrier only shows entertainment on flights over 2.5 hours, and again, since it's not on the 737 fleet.

"Of course this isn't unheard of, Northwest doesn't have domestic IFE, neither does Alaska, Southwest and for the most part American. We're removing it after Nov. 1," says a US Airways spokesman.

That's a fair point, but let's point out that Northwest is not exactly known for its innovation (40-year old DC-9s certainly aren't going to get new IFE); Alaska spearheaded the portable IFE movement; and Southwest's no-frills model has been it's bread and butter and ensured reasonable fares (a model it is, admittedly, changing up a bit).

So why is US Airways doing this? The carrier - which is in a major cost-cutting, revenue-enhancing mood of late - says the decision will save $10 million annually by cutting fuel burn (500 pounds per unit), maintenance and upkeep costs, and study and content costs. Plus, it says, customer behaviour has changed. "Folks are using their own devices and their own headsets so we're losing revenue by not selling them."

IFE will remain on US Airways' widebodies and Boeing 757s for transatlantic and transpacific routes.

But never fear. US Airways says it is not giving up on domestic IFE altogether.

"Ideally we wouldn't have removed the system until we had a new replacement system ready. We would have swapped them out but because of fuel we're electing to just remove the old while we continue to work on a new system. We were well down the road doing with until fuel drastically spiked upwards," says the carrier.

Significantly, US Airways is doing a test with Lumexis in October on one aircraft for about three months. This is a big deal. California-based Lumexis uses military-proven fiber optics as the basis for its platform. The company claims that its system offers "unprecedented" Gigabit-per-second bandwidth to each passenger screen at a fraction of the acquisition and life-cycle costs and weight of existing platforms.

Lumexis' offering, says US Airways is "much lighter than current IFE because it uses fiber optic technology, which also is good because it allows us to offer a lot more content than an older system using copper wiring. Fiber optic allows for much more data transfer. We're looking at several other alternatives that offer more on-demand personalized content, which is what people want nowadays."

(Cool photo above directly from Lumexis' web site at http://www.lumexis.com/default.aspx ) 

If you'd like ot know more about Lumexis, read my February 2006 article below.

Fiber optics at heart of new IFE system from startup Lumexis
Mary Kirby, Philadelphia (21Feb06, 22:34 GMT, 410 words)

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news

Dear Teammates:

It is with mixed emotions that I announce that Charles Ogilvie is leaving his position as Director of In-flight Entertainment and Partnerships at Virgin America.  Charles will be pursuing a unique opportunity-- to lead Panasonic's in-flight entertainment and new airborne technology platforms in China.  Charles will be based in Shanghai and will report directly to their CEO.  

Charles started with Virgin America four years ago and was one of a small group of talented, innovative and passionate individuals who were driven to create a different kind of airline - one that people would actually like, and maybe even love.  

Charles was the creative and operational force behind the development of the Red in-flight entertainment system, working tirelessly to oversee its design and build out the system's impressive content partnerships with dozens of movie studios, television networks, record labels, web sites, and other entertainment partners.

The result is a system that is the most advanced in-fight entertainment system in the U.S. skies, with a diversity and breadth of programming, films, games and other offerings that dwarf that of any other domestic airline.  That Charles was chosen by Panasonic for this important position is not only a reflection of his talent but also a nod to the leadership position that Virgin America has taken in in-flight entertainment.  

Please join me in thanking Charles for his contributions to this company and congratulating him on his next chapter as Executive Director of China at Panasonic.

Thanks

David    

A decision on where the CSeries will be assembled has not yet been made, but signs are increasingly pointing to Bombardier's Mirabel, Quebec plant.  

Bombardier has long said it sees its plant in Mirabel - a suburb of Montreal - as the "preferred site" for final assembly. And yesterday Montreal-area machinists at Bombardier voted in favour of a six-year collective bargaining agreement that is contingent on the airframer selecting their region for final assembly of the CSeries.

There is only one other candidate in the running - Kansas City, Missouri. "Since last week, we can now confirm two final candidates - Mirabel and Kansas City," says a Bombardier spokesman. He notes that yesterday's positive vote from the machinists "is definitely a favourable point in the Mirabel candidacy".

For its part, Missouri recently approved a $240 million tax credit programme that it hopes will persuade the manufacturer to build a $395 million CSeries assembly plant at Kansas City International Airport.

Under the terms of the machinists' deal, however, Bombardier must decide by 15 July whether it will select Mirabel for final assembly.

Meanwhile, a new report from Research Capital analyst Jacques Kavafian says Shanghai Airlines and China Southern Airlines are scheduled to meet with Chinese regulators on 14 July to obtain the required approvals to place orders for the CSeries.

"We believe that both China Southern and Shanghai Airlines have a meeting scheduled with CAAC [Civil Aviation Administration of China] on 14 July 2008, to obtain the required approvals to purchase the aircraft," says Kavafian. "Although the 14 July meeting date with CAAC coincides with the opening day of the Farnborough air show, we don't know if they are related."

So who is Kavafian? According to his bio, Kavafian began his career as an analyst in Montréal in 1985, moving to Toronto in 1996. He was previously with Research Capital from 1996 to 1998, and in the interim period worked at Octagon Capital and Yorkton Securities.

But with respect to Bombardier's Chinese endeavours, does Kavafian have the inside track? We'll know very shortly if his predictions hold true. However, there is good reason to believe the Chinese are interested.

The CSeries' centre fuselage will be manufactured by China Aviation Industries I (AVIC I) subsidiary Shenyang Aircraft, which agreed to invest in facilities and equipment. In turn, Bombardier is investing $100 million into China's ARJ21-900 project and providing technical assistance in developing the aircraft.

Photo from Bombardier's new web site (which looks MUCH better than the last one) at http://www.bombardier.com

"I told you that British Airways wasn't going to stop with ONE airplane in their OpenSkies endeavour. So it come as no surprise to me at all, that BA is acquiring French carrier L'Avion and suddenly tripling the size of their 757 fleet.

"True, still only 3 airplanes, but offering 3 round-trips per day between New York and Paris amounts to about 1440 block hours per month. In pilot terms that comes to 3 days on, 3 days off, and 5 round trips ORY-JFK-ORY per month...80 hours block time...20 bidlines...5 reserve Captains, 5 reserve First Officers...50 pilot jobs that have already been outsourced from BA to OpenSkies.

"Now let's say you're a senior First Officer at BA. You'd be looking for a Captain upgrade bid. Here's 25 Captain jobs that have gone to the outsource garbage-dump...a third of them are an actual reduction in Captain bids at BA because one airplane went away.  So now instead of looking at Captain upgrade, you're actually further away from the left seat....and at the bottom of the list, instead of hiring 50 new-hires, we'd be talking possible layoffs.

"I hope this illustrates in real terms why scope is important to pilots."

(Pic from British Airways)

"In terms of the public test last week, we were very pleased with the response from passengers and the usability insights we gained from the first 'real world' test of Gogo.  I hope to have more to say about it in the coming weeks," says a company spokesman.

Aircell  also addressed the departure of long-time VP of sales and marketing Bill Peltola. "We won't be releasing a statement since we don't comment on the specifics of any personnel or organization changes.  Aircell is, of course, grateful for Bill's many years of service and wishes him all the best in his future endeavors."

I'm thankful for Aircell's response. But, okay, we're not much more clued in than before, are we?

On a separate note, for the Boingo lovers among us, the firm is conducting an Independence Day promotion whereby users can enjoy free WiFi, including at the more than 500 airports where service is available.

Go to www.boingo.com/freedom and get online this weekend to blog, chat, upload pics, and more.

Kavafian has backed away from that launch prediction somewhat. He now says: "The timing for the CSeries could not get any better and we believe that the aircraft will be launched this year; it may or may not be at Farnborough this July."

Howevver, in his latest research note, Kavafian says soaring fuel prices "make the CSeries very compelling to the extent that we believe it now seriously threatens the Boeing 737-700 as a viable product". The potential market, he estimates, may exceed the 6,000 that Bombardier has estimated over the next 20 years.

Kavafian argues that the CSeries will have a minimum $3.1 million per year operating cost advantage over the newest product such as the Boeing 737-700 and over $6 million cost advantage over older aircraft models such as MD-80s and Boeing 737 Classics.

The largest advantage of the CSeries, he says, is that, according to Bombardier's estimates, the aircraft has a 21% to 29% block fuel advantage over the 737 "having similar seating capacity and passenger range".

He adds: "The economics are more compelling for the 130-seat version, but even the 110-seat version of the aircraft has cost savings over the Boeing 737-700. The main competing aircraft of the CSeries will be the Boeing 737-600, 737-700, Airbus A318 and A319."

I recently had a very interesting conversation with Henri Courpron, a former Airbus procurement chief who now heads the aerospace division at consultancy Seabury. Courpron believes "the door was left open by Airbus and Boeing" in the 100-class sector, a void that several manufacturers are now seeking to fill with large regional jets.

"From the large guys' perspective, I think it's fair to say that Airbus and Boeing's venture into the 100-seater has not been at all a success. The A318 had very limited sales and the 737-600 was not exactly a rock star either," says Courpron.

Airbus and Boeing continue to delay decisions on when they will develop successors to their highly-popular A320 and 737NG models. The two airframers are willing to take the chance that Bombardier and others will gain a portion of the small narrowbody market, says Courpron.

"For them there is a lot more at stake than just trying to play defence with what might happen with new entrants in the 100-seater market because what they need to decide for the future is what happens in the 125- to 250-seat segment. And this is where the major battle will take place. It is not around 100 seats."

At its highest density, the CSeries 130, 130ER and new 130XT variants can seat 145 passengers.

An American spokesman tells me: "At his point American is not releasing any feedback they have received on the test. Passengers will not have access to the service again until it officially launches in the coming weeks. As of yet there isn't an exact launch date."

What the heck? Aircell has been equally quiet over the last week. On 24 June, an Aircell spokesman said the news that was emerging about the soft launch was driven by American. "Other than the comments you have seen today, Aircell does not intend to comment on tomorrow's 'dress rehearsal'," he said.

I've put a post-test comment request to them, regardless.

Meanwhile (and talk about timing), Aircell's long-time VP of sales and marketing Bill Peltola has confirmed he is leaving the company. No reason, as yet, has been given. On an aside, I'll miss Bill. He has been truly helpful to me over the years.

But as a journalist who has covered Aircell for several years, I don't recall the Colorado-based firm ever being so, well, tight-lipped. I understand they have a lot at stake here. A stamp of approval from US giant American could see fast adoption from other carriers. A thumbs down would not be pretty.

Aircell has already proven its technology works. In fact, it did so as far back as 2005.  And Walt Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal's personal technology columnist who recently snagged a private test of Gogo - the only journalist invited to do so - seemed generally pleased. (By the way, if you sign up for a Gogo account, you will receive complimentary in-flight access to the Wall Street Journal Online.) 

But how will the service perform when, say, a sizeable portion of a 767 plane-load of passengers use it? I guess we're going to have to wait to find out.

Discussions with Bombardier's owned service centres and authorized service facilities "are just happening now" but the airframer is expected to take a much more comprehensive - and integrated - approach with the CSeries MRO programme than it has with past commercial products, says Mike Kanaley, VP and general manager of fleet management and service programmes for Bombardier's services division, who was kind enough to chat with me about the Canadian airframer's MRO activities for a new Flight feature.

He says the company is looking at who will be the likely CSeries MRO service providers, as well as "working intimately with our suppliers manufacturing the aircraft to ensure overhaul capabilities are in place, and support of the aircraft from start to finish".

Boeing, of course, has already been developing its GoldCare programme to give a single contact point for 787 customers. Boeing's vice president, 787 services and support for the 787 programme, Robert Avery says he would not be surprised if Bombardier or Embraer offer similar programmes to GoldCare. "I think it can be and probably will be adapted for regionals."

The most integrated maintenance contract ever brokered between an airframer and an airline involved Airbus and now-defunct Skybus Airlines. Skybus asked Airbus and Boeing to proffer packages that would combine the purchase of new aircraft with cost-per-hour maintenance services well in advance of the carrier's mid-2007 launch. Skybus ultimately awarded Airbus a contract for 65 A319s that included integrated maintenance services. While Airbus took responsibility for the airline's maintenance, the airframer tapped Singapore Technologies Aerospace's (ST Aero) US division, Mobile Aerospace (MAE) to perform the work.

Bombardier would be prepared to offer a similar total support programme agreed between Airbus and Skybus should the need arise. "[Whether] another Skybus comes along and wants that capability in our new product [such as the CSeries] remains to be seen. But, if so, it's our obligation to find a way to make that work for both Bombardier and the customer," says Kanaley. "We also don't pretend that it's all going to be performed by Bombardier. We'd leverage our supplier networks and our leverage these, and if that works for the customer, that works for us."

In many ways, however, this more integrated business model is what Bombardier intends to pursue aggressively with its future products. And once you've aligned the supply chain and service delivery network, "it has the potential to be back-fitted into certainly the existing product lines", says Kanaley.

Photo above from the Solid Gold Dance Connection gallary at http://www.sgdanceconnection.com/gallery.html

CSeries_May 08.pdf

I recently received a copy of Finnish aeronautical publication Ilmailu in the mail, and there on page 28 is a photo of yours truly looking far too demure beside Embraer's ethanol-powered Ipanema aircraft. I'm rather certain that the  photo would have been more effective if I had mounted the aircraft, legs akimbo, in a bikini. But then again, Embraer may never invite me back to Sao Paulo.

Nonetheless, I'm grateful for Ilmailu's inclusion of this pic in its magazine. Now could somebody tell me what the article says?

The entire system (end-to-end) will be tested to "make sure we're ready to launch", says American. Passengers will be able to take the system on a free ride - for now.

During testing this week American "will be observing the performance of the network to ensure that it operates the same way in 'real life' as it has during the months of testing we've conducted".

The rest of the 767-200s earmarked for the carrier's broader 15-aircraft test will be turned on in the coming weeks pending the outcome of this test.

Mitsubishi has already secured All Nippon Airways as launch customer, and is reportedly closing in on a second deal. Bombardier is rumoured to launch the CSeries at Farnborough (which runs 14-20 July) with as many as 200 orders, including 50 from China Southern.

A big draw for both aircraft is the high-bypass GTF, which is attracting increasing interest, including from former sceptics of the project. "I think what you're seeing is an industry that is starting to understand the facts and the figures, and maybe being able to separate [these] from myth," says Benjamin Boehm, director, programme management office and director of marketing, new commercial aircraft programmes at Bombardier Aerospace.

P&W recently held technical symposiums in Asia and the USA to show would-be customers what the GTF can deliver as the exclusive powerplant for both the MRJ and CSeries. "Customers are coming to us at these events we're hosting. There is absolutely a great push and emphasis on better fuel economy and better emission performance [to be made available] in a timely fashion," says Mary Ellen Jones, VP of marketing for P&W Commercial Engines.

But if you're looking for P&W to let the cat out of the bag on orders, think again. Jones sees Farnborough's July timing as somewhat of "an arbitrary date", but she has no doubt we'll see some order action this year.

The first flight of the GTF on a Boeing 747SP test-bed will occur "around the time of Farnborough", says Jones. "The biggest expectation is to have a flight test programme as successful as our ground test programme."

Clearly the GTF proposal - which promises to reduce fuel burn by at least 12% compared to current high-bypass ratio turbines - is "going in the right direction", says consultant Bob Mann, who suggests that if Bombardier and Mitsubishi can deliver on their promises "those look like some of the leading programmes in [improving] economics".

So what does Bombardier have to say as Farnborough nears? "I think the best thing for me to say of the show is that our calendar of airline face-to-face executive meetings is filling up fast and our calendar for supplier that want to get on the programme is filling up fast," says Boehm.

"That pretty much says I'm going to very busy during that week."

The last time we checked in with our friends at WheelTug, they were brokering risk-sharing partnerships, and working to secure supplemental type certification on the system for Boeing 737NG aircraft.

The company now reveals it is in serious discussions with potential customers about adapting the system for other types -  including the military!

"A formal response has already been submitted for one military aircraft, with more to follow," reveals the firm in a recent newsletter. "Military airplanes do not have the same commercial certification hurdles, so in many cases the effort can be accomplished in parallel."

Meanwhile, a motor designed specifically for the wheel envelope and geometry of the 737NG is underway at parent Chorus Motors, with aircraft testing by WheelTug scheduled for this summer, says the company.

The overall program schedule includes completion of all hardware for certification testing by early 2009, with the remainder of the year dedicated to certification. Corporate objectives include installation for revenue-generating flights by the end of 2009 or very early 2010.

WheelTug currently works with partner and US launch customer Delta Air Lines. Over the coming months, WheelTug expects to select the next target commercial aircraft type.

"There is increasing interest in the Airbus A320, since a WheelTug-equipped 737NG will have substantial operating and cost competitive advantages over an A320 without a WheelTug," says the firm.

"Regional Jets as well as the Boeing 757 are potential candidates but in the end, the decision will be based on the level of interest and commitment from customer airlines and regional carriers."

In the face of soaring fuel costs, WheelTug says it can save an airline tens of thousands of dollars per month for every aircraft.