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Aviation History
2001
2001 - 3858.PDF
"We have had to undertake a lot of modifications to the aircraft, but it has worked" LENNART PERRSON SAS COMMUTER DEPUTY CHIEF ENGINEER Q400 fleet is achieving a schedule comple tion rate of 99.13%, and 28-day average despatch reliability of 97.98%. Technical problems aside, Guo says pilots like flying the Q400 because of its superior speed and performance compared with the Xian Y-7 it replaced. Profitable operation Although Changan's Q400 operation is profitable, Guo says the aircraft lacks pas senger appeal as the Chinese market favours jet aircraft. He admits he would like to see the Q400s leave the fleet "as soon as possible" and be replaced with a large regional-jet type. Guo believes the Bombardier turboprop does not provide enough of an advantage over even the Chinese-built Xian Y-7 to dissuade passengers from choosing to fly on jets operated by Changan's rivals. "We were advertising a Western fleet, but the passengers thought it was still the old Y-7 airplane," says Guo. "The custo mers, when they have the option, prefer to select a jet airplane. When the previous management made the decision [to order Q400s] they were looking at the economics not customer preference," he adds. This about-face on turboprops by Changan follows its take-over by Hainan, which was already pursuing a regional-jet strategy. "Changan wants to phase out the Q400 because Hainan Airlines plans to have an all-jet fleet, which already includes 19 Fairchild Dornier 328JETs," says Guo. Guo says that if Changan's parent Hainan Airlines Group gaes ahead with plans to acquire 50- and 70-seat regional jets, these would replace the Q400s. The chosen manufacturer would also be required to take back the Q400s as a trade- in, he says. When it received its first Q400s in May last year, Tyrolean Airways was already a well-established Dash 8 operator with its first -100s having entered service in 1985. The Innsbruck, Austria-based air line's Dash 8 fleet now totals 19 aircraft, including five Q400s, which are all flown by a single pilot pool. The airline placed its initial order in January 1997 for four 72-seat Q400s plus four options which it has since firmed up. Tyrolean's Q400s are deployed on domes tic and international services from Vienna and on weekend charters around Europe and to North Africa. On shorter routes of less than an hour, the Q400 has replaced Fokker 70 jets, where the turboprop oper ates "almost the same block times. On Vienna-Innsbruck the Q400 burns the same fuel-load in pounds as the Fokker does in kilogrammes," says Manfred Helldoppler, Tyrolean's manager of flight operations support. Passengers like the air craft and there has been no negative reac tion to the switch from a jet. The aircraft has "met or bettered" its performance guarantees in almost every area, says Helldoppler, although there are some penalties in certain icing conditions: "We are in discussion with Bombardier and I think this will be resolved," he adds. Helldoppler believes it was Tyrolean's experience of Bombardier, rather than the Dash 8 itself, which helped the airline through the troubled introduction of the Q400: "It is called a Dash 8, and looks like a Dash 8, but is in fact a completely new aircraft. There is very little commonality with the earlier models," he says. "However we know how to operate a Dash 8 and we understand Bombardier's philosophy," he adds. According to Tyrolean's technical direc tor Hermann Winter, every Q400 delivery to Tyrolean so far has been behind sched ule. "The first arrived six months late in May 2000, and Bombardier has provided a BAe 146 to maintain our capacity," he says. The manufacturer also covers the dif ference in operating costs between the two aircraft. Although the delays have been improving, things are expected to deteriorate following lay-offs at the Bombardier production plant in Toronto, says Winter. Like SAS, the airline has suffered the nuisance warnings and spurious power- plant messages, but it has always stayed top of the Q400's reliability rankings, says Winter: "It started at 97% and is now around 98.5% - but it is still not good enough. We want 99%." Problems have been exacerbated be cause "the reaction time of Bombardier has been too slow. The programme part ners are responsible for problems in their parts of the aircraft and the liaison between them hasn't worked and still doesn't," he says. Winter is a member of the Q400's fleet- wide steering committee, which has been given the task of addressing outstanding reliability, performance or airworthiness issues. "We have drawn up a list of the top 25 and top 50 issues which Bombardier must address," he says. Areas of difficulty On a positive note, Winter says that "the engines have behaved very well and P&WC have been very proactive." Beyond the nuisance warning problems, which are improving, other specific areas of difficulty for Tyrolean include starter- generators; doors (the seals, proximity switches and mechanical issues); and maintenance manuals and part numbers. The starter generators have proved too fragile, says Winter, with their life having to be reduced from an original l,600h to 700 cycles. "They are now surviving, but somebody is having to pick up the cost," he says. Door seals have had to be replaced due to pressurisation problems, while the door manufacturer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has developed a series of modifications for the handles and lugs/stops. In addition to all the reliability issues, trouble-shooting has been hampered by incomplete maintenance manuals, says Winter, while there are also discrepancies between some component part numbers and serial numbers. "This is still a bit of a mess but is slowly being cleared up," he says. This last comment could be applied to the entire Q400 programme. Bombardier has seemingly undermined the impressive earning potential that the high perfor mance turboprop can offer over jets in dif ficult yield environments by taking too long to address the Q400's poor reliability upon introduction, thereby allowing its image to be tar nished. • e i FLIGHT TIM BROWN 2001 34 4-10 DECEMBER 2001 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL wVw.fliqhtinternational.com
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