British Airways is in the final stages of evaluating potential replacements for the 10 BAE Systems Avro RJ100s operated at London City by its CityFlyer subsidiary.
BA commercial director Robert Boyle says the carrier is looking at the Embraer 170/190 family and “may look again” at turboprops. He adds that switching to younger RJ-family aircraft is also a possibility.
CityFlyer’s 10 RJ100s were manufactured between 1997 and 2000, according to Flight’s ACAS database.
Boyle says BA has excluded from the study the Airbus A318, which the carrier is acquiring for its new all-business London City-New York operation, because it is too heavy for short-haul flights from London City.
He says BA will decide on an RJ100 replacement in the next year or so: “We’re now in the process of winding up the evaluation.”
CityFlyer has been operating all of BA’s RJ100s since last March, when the subsidiary was created to take over the London City operations from BA Connect. BA Connect was sold at the same time to UK regional carrier Flybe but the RJ100s and London City routes, which BA has been growing over the last year, were excluded from the deal.
Source: flightglobal.com's sister premium news site Air Transport Intelligence news
Source: FlightGlobal.com
