Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH
FAIRCHILD AIRCRAFT, which took over 80% of turboprop manufacturer Dornier Luftfahrt on 5 June, looks set to kill the Dornier 228 programme. Dornier is to help design a new version of the Fairchild Metro.
The unpressurised 19-seat 228 "probably" has no future, says Fairchild chairman Carl Albert, who reckons that his company's own, pressurised, 19-seat Metro 23 makes a better stablemate for the 33-seat Dornier 328.
Albert says that many of Fairchild's Metro customers are new regional airlines, which grow to need larger aircraft, previously only available from other manufacturers. "It was our goal to align the Metro with a 30-seater," he says.
The US company needs to cut Dornier's costs dramatically to turn the technically impressive but expensive Dornier 328 into a profitable programme. The planned 50-seat stretch version will be launched by mid-July, says Albert (Flight International, 12-18 June).
As part of the cost-cutting effort, functions such as marketing, sales and product support will be centralised at the US company's San Antonio, Texas, base. At the same time, design and development work, such as that for an enlarged cabin and redesigned wing for a new version of the Metro, will be placed at Dornier's Oberpfaffenhofen plant. Albert estimates that the 328 stretch could be certificated within 36 months of programme launch. The improved Metro is to be launched by the end of July, and could be approved 24 months later.
The Fairchild boss says that there are no plans to subcontract abroad any production work now at Oberpfaffenhofen, although some subcontracted 328 parts could be manufactured in San Antonio.
The US company, has guaranteed to keep at least 1,200 jobs at Oberpfaffenhofen, up to the end of 1999. Dornier 328 production at the German site will stay indefinitely, if this is economically viable.
Some 300 of Dornier Luftfahrt's 2,200 employees will be transferred to German 20% shareholder Dornier GmbH, to perform maintenance work on large military aircraft such as the Boeing E-3 Sentry and the Breguet Atlantic. Alpha Jet and military-helicopter maintenance work will stay with Dornier Luftfahrt.
Source: Flight International
