Lufthansa's planned reshaping of its regional divisions, following its commitment to the Bombardier CSeries, will result in its culling almost its entire fleet of nearly 60 BAe 146s and BAE Systems Avro RJs.
Dortmund-based Eurowings is to receive the 15 Bombardier CRJ900s ordered by Lufthansa two years ago, where they will replace all BAe 146s - around 14 jets, a mix of -200 and -300 variants. The CRJ900s will effectively give Eurowings an all-CRJ fleet, as it already operates smaller CRJ models.
While Lufthansa has previously only given brief details on regional jet allocations, sources familiar with the deployment have also confirmed plans for 30 Embraer 190/195s ordered shortly after the CRJ900s.
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Twenty of these will be introduced to Lufthansa CityLine, where they are to replace most of its 18 Avro RJ85s as well as a number of CRJ200s. Lufthansa said last November that it would remove 14 CRJ200s from the CityLine fleet.
Another five Embraers have already been assigned to Air Dolomiti, to replace its five BAe 146-300s.
The remaining five Embraers will be introduced to Munich-based Augsburg Airways, which has an all-turboprop fleet of Bombardier Q300/400s.
Figures disclosed in January showed that Lufthansa's Embraer order comprised 16 baseline 190s and 14 of the larger 195.
Lufthansa's 30 newly ordered CSeries aircraft will replace the 20 Avro RJs at Swiss International Air Lines' regional operation, although Lufthansa points out that the jets still have "plenty of time" in service because CSeries will not arrive until 2014.
Source: Flight International
