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Aviation History
1997
1997 - 0568.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT HERMAN DE WULF/FRANKFURT LUFTHANSA IS fighting hub conges tion by offering an increasing number of direct city-to-city flights, both within Germany and to destinations in Europe, avoiding its hubs at Frankfurt and Munich. Flying 320 flights daily to European centres on routes for which traffic is too light for a 100-seat aircraft is the kind of operation which requires a specialised airline. That is where Lufthansa's CityLine comes in. Based at Cologne, low-cost CityLine takes care of Lufthansa's oper ations "...on less-frequented routes within Europe which are not served by the smallest aircraft in the Lufthansa fleet". CityLine operates an all-jet fleet of 17 Aero International (Regional) Avro RJ85s and 29 Bombardier Canadair Regional Jets. The airline in 1996 carried over 3 million passengers, with an aver age load factor just over 50% and a DM6 million ($4 million) profit. CityLine managing director Dr Karl- Friedrich Rausch says: "We are set for growth. We have new markets and high er yield in mind and have set our 1997 target at 3.7 million passengers. But we stick to routes where 100-seat Lufthansa aircraft would be too big. We also learned that customers prefer jets. So we phased out our last Fokker 50 last year and now have an all-jet fleet." Much of the success stems from oper ating the CRJ, for which CityLine was launch customer in 1990. Rausch says: "The CRJ is economical. It allows us to tap new markets and serve destinations that cannot be served by larger aircraft. The aircraft offers sterling service on 'long thin routes' where turboprops are too slow and a Boeing 737 too big. "Our break-even load factor is at 50%, but we think we can improve on that through growth into new markets and by addressing the high-yield business trav eller niche. We have no plans for acquir ing a third aircraft type, but we are interested in the new CRJ-X...That would fit nicely between our present CRJ and the bigger Avro regional jet. It has an underfloor baggage compartment that will allow us to solve the problem of pas sengers invariably walking on board with oversize cabin luggage," Rausch says. Much of CityLine's success is based on being a low-cost airline. "Our pilots are paid 20% less than Lufthansa's. We hire them on the free market, but most come from the Lufthansa school in Phoenix, Arizona," Rausch says. Fligbtdeck commonality aits training costs Cabin changes will reduce tunnel effect gage, in the forward-fuselage plug. Wingspan has been increased 1.83m by inserting a root plug, which houses additional fuel and die longer landing gear. Leading-edge high-lift devices are added to provide field per formance similar to that of the current CRJ; take-off performance is significantly better, says Holding. Range and speed performance is sim ilar to that of the CRJ-200, enabling operators of both to match aircraft capacity to demand without losing the flexibility and economy of common crew-qualification, he says. The current CRJ's Rockwell-Collins Pro Line 4 avionics are retained. Avoiding flight- deck changes allows a common pilot pool and die differences training required will be limited to one simulator session, Bombardier believes. Beyond training, commonality extends to maintenance, spares and support, which account for die bulk of fleet costs, he argues. POWERPLANT PARTNER General Electric is responsible for die complete powerplant, as a risk-sharing partner, with Shorts supplying die nacelle and dirust-revers- er to GE. The 56kN (12,6701b)-thrust CF34- 8C1 is a 50% growdi version of the engine powering the current CRJ, and introduces full- authority digital engine-control. Odier design changes include a common left/right nacelle, witJi clamshell cowls to improve accessibility— a criticism of die current CRJ. Systems design is based on that of die existing aircraft, but with supplier partners responsible for providing integrated systems. Leibherr- Aerospace is developing the air-management system, covering ice protection, avionics cool ing and cabin pressurisation; Sundstrand,the electrical-generation and slats/flaps-control systems; Menasco, the main and nose landing- gear complete with braking and steering sys tems; and Intertechnique, the fuel system. REGIONAL GROWTH Bombardier plans to fly die first of four test air craft in die second quarter of 1999, and is aim ing for simultaneous Canadian, European and US certification and first deliveries in the fourth quarter of 2000. The CRJ-700 will be approved under an amended CRJ type certificate, which is itself an amendment of the original Challenger ticket. Holding says the CRJ-X will be certifi cated to die latest requirements where there are design changes from the current aircraft. Holding says that die larger aircraft, with its 20% lower seat-kilometre direct operating- costs, will allow regional airlines to grow by replacing existing major-airline jet services and by increasing frequency in existing jet-airliner markets — a trend Bombardier has observed already among current CRJ operators, where replacing or supplementing major-airline jet service accounts for almost 50% of operations. As Bombardier Aerospace president Bob Brown says: "We have proved diat die market for regional jets exists, and it is a major area for growth. Now diat the momentum is building, die CRJ-700 makes sense." 3 The CRJ-700 is a "natural extension" of the company's regional-airci'afi line 30 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 5 - 11 March 1997
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