Austrian Airlines is being tipped with placing an order for Bombardier’s CSeries to replace its ageing Fokker regional jet fleet after it emerged its newly inked labour deal references the type.
Local media have reported that the wholly-owned Lufthansa subsidiary ’s new labour agreement for pilots and flight attendants covers terms for the deployment of CSeries aircraft, while it does not mention alternative models, such as Embraer’s E-Jet family.
Austrian says that the labour agreement – which is to become effective in December – has been based on the CSeries as it represents a potential future scenario in terms of aircraft and future fleet size. But the carrier insists that no decision has yet been made about the aircraft type that is to replace the existing Fokker fleet.
That decision is to be made by Austrian’s management and its parent group in 2015.
Austrian is planning to introduce aircraft with higher capacity than its 100-seat Fokker 100, and to operate the new type as part of its mainline instead of regional fleet. But the plan has caused resentment among pilots.
While the airline will maintain two separate cockpit workforces for the mainline and regional aircraft under the new labour deal, it is planning to employ pilots from both corps on the future type.
The labour contract has been agreed by management and staff representatives in October. But the airline’s works council and union have said that details of the framework need to be “further developed and extended” in terms of its “social components” from 2015 onward.
Flightglobal’s Ascend Fleets database shows Austrian has 15 Fokker 100 and seven Fokker 70 regional jets. The airline is planning to replace the twinjets by 2018.
Sister Lufthansa Group carrier Swiss International Air Lines has ordered 30 CSeries aircraft for its regional fleet, with deliveries scheduled to begin in the second half of 2015.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
