Proposals for a new aircraft family unveiled by Bombardier at the Farnborough airshow have helped spark the debate about the shape of things to come at the bottom end of the mainline fleet where regionals meet with low-cost and major carriers
New aircraft unveilings tend to be well-choreographed set pieces, with the new proposed model more than adequately sign-posted in advance. And true to form, Bombardier had flagged up its thinking around a new 110-135-seat jet well before the model was finally unveiled on the opening day of the Farnborough airshow in July. However, as the details on size, shape and range of the CSeries were revealed, it became clear that the concept, if it captures airline imaginations, would mark a radical departure both for Bombardier and the market at large.
It is clear that Bombardier intends this not simply as a step up in size for its regional jet range, but effectively a new breed of light and flexible aircraft with up to 135 seats and transcontinental range. The manufacturer is also talking of a 15%step change in operating efficiency through the use of new engine and airframe technology - just as Boeing has with the 7E7.
Certainly, the seat size of the aircraft is a bold step, mounting an obvious challenge to the Airbus A318/A319 and Boeing 737-600/-700 offerings at the bottom end of their narrowbody fleets. Until now that has looked like dangerous territory, in part due to two imposing competitors and in large part due to US scope clauses - the agreements signed by majors with their pilots to limit the type of aircraft and services flown by regional affiliates. That artificial barrier has created some dead ground in the 70-100-seat market, at least until now.
In some ways it was this artificial barrier that helped the original 50-seat regional jet, first pioneered by Bombardier back in the early 1990s, to thrive within regional fleets. Since then the scope clauses have loosened a little, allowing the regionals to move up to 70 seat jets as the majors hand down ever larger slices of business to their lower cost, more flexible partners.
The smart money is betting that as and when restrictions ease further, regional carriers will bid up aircraft size, leaving the 50-70-seat market in decline over the long term. Thus the need, if production rates are to remain strong, to access the market for larger seat sizes.
Bombardier itself had looked hard at a new aircraft family in the 100-seat market, parading its BRJ-X proposals five years ago. However, it eventually withdrew, preferring instead to stretch its 70-seat CRJ-700 up to the 90-seat -900, launched at Farnborough 2000.
However, Embraer did create a new family, moving into the 70-110-seat range with the 170, now entering service and the 190, which flew for the first time in public at Farnborough this year. But Embraer says that it still remains reluctant to "interfere" with the smallest offerings from Airbus and Boeing.
Bombardier plays down the potential rivalry, arguing that the A320 and 737 families have 150 seats as their baseline, whereas its proposal would be firmly anchored below that size. "We don't see anybody building an aircraft specifically designed for the 110-135 seater marketplace," says Gary Scott, an ex-Boeing veteran who is heading up the CSeries feasibility study at Bombardier.
But the big question is not about technology, nor even efficiency, but the more fundamental issue of what type of carrier will operate such an aircraft. Scope clauses look likely to rule out traditional regionals for years to come, while network carriers today may be wary about introducing a whole new fleet type, just as they have been with the Boeing 717. That would appear to leave the new model, low-cost carriers. Notably, JetBlue launched the Embraer 190 with an order for 100 aircraft.
The sector is not to be easily dismissed, a message reinforced by this year's World Airline Rankings (see pages 52-76). They show that without the low-cost carriers the industry would have shown no traffic growth last year. And though tiny in number, they accounted for over half of the industry's operating profits. As they change the nature of the business, is it possible that aircraft too will have to evolve away from the traditional workhorses of the past? With the 7E7 now safely launched Boeing itself is looking hard at what comes after the 737. Bombardier was, apparently, interested in bringing Boeing into the CSeries project, although it declined.
The CSeries is still far from launch, or indeed from finding launch funding, but successful or not it may yet prove to have been an early shot in a much bigger debate about the future shape of things to come in the narrowbody fleet.
Source: Airline Business
