Herman De Wulf/BRUSSELS
Dutch firm RDM Holdings is proposing to revive the Fokker 70/100 JetLine family by utilising production facilities in an Asian country, such as China, to keep costs down.
Joep van den Nieuwenhuyzen, president of the board of Dutch firm RDM, sees a future for the short/medium haul airliner at a price of around $20 million, provided the aircraft can be built in a country with low employment costs. Although RDM's main activity is shipbuilding (including submarines for the Dutch Navy), the company also owns MD Helicopters, which it purchased from Boeing.
Van den Nieuwenhuyzen has just returned from China, where he visited 22 factories. He believes that Fokker production could be relaunched using the spare capacity of the Chinese aircraft factories that had been employed in producing components for McDonnell Douglas, prior to its take-over by Boeing. Since the merger, Boeing has not signed any new contracts with the Chinese manufacturer, and it is now looking for more work. Hong Kong based conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa is interested in financing the project, says Van den Nieuwenhuyzen.
Jaap Rosen Jacobson, owner of Antwerp-based VLM Airlines, may also be involved in the project. Several years ago, he founded Rekkof Restart to relaunch Fokker 70/100 production, but failed to find financing. Jacobson still owns dedicated production tools for the type, which are stored at Lelystad, in the Netherlands. Stork, which owns Fokker Services, the in-service support arm, as well as Fokker Aerostructures, may also be involved - it possesses production jigs for the types.
The most difficult issue to be resolved, if the project goes ahead, will be the certification of Chinese-built Fokkers, which would require approval to US Federal Aviation Aviation standards for export. Another major hurdle is that most blueprints and documentation are in Dutch, and would require translation into Chinese or English.
Source: Flight International