Are you serious?
OMG, the RJs ARE medium haul planes just like the 737/A319... or do you think BRU-MRS is shorthaul whereas BRU-NCE is medium haul, just because it is operated by a smaller plane?
Yes I'm serious. RJs, by definition, are regional jets, flying regional routes. I'll let you think about that.
In your defense, I will add that it's a fact that Sukhoi is marketing the SSJ as a medium range aircraft, but it's still a regional jet.
It's also a fact that the CSeries is not an RJ.
We're not talking about the best fleet TODAY, but the best fleet for 2015 to 2025+, remember?
By the time the first new plane arrives, SN's long haul network will have grown (so much is no secret) and the STAR hub in BRU will have matured a fair bit too. Just catapult yourself 4 years ahead in time and imagine the most conservative expansion scenario: SN is operating 7 A330s of their own, there's an evening flight to NY (in codeshare with a US airline), ANA is serving NRT daily in the evening and there's another link to South East Asia by a STAR partner. On top of that, some more European STAR airlines are feeding through BRU....
Still so sure the CS100 is such a crazy idea, knowing in the next decade things will only go up from here?
To me, the best fleet for SN in 2015 is alot different from the best fleet for SN in 2025. Simply because there is a world of difference between an airline that operates 7 long-haul aircraft and one that operates 20 (hopefully).
Now, alliances do not have major merits for an airline like SN, an airline that is operating short-haul mainly and longhaul flights that have their own feeding at the hub but no feeding in Africa. They do for airlines that have immense longhaul networks like Lufthansa or Singapore Airlines who want to operate on hub to hub models and get feeding on both sides of their routes.
Though there is alot of focus on growth, will SN really grow from now to 2015?
Easyjet is about to enter BRU, Ryanair is expanding like never before in CRL and SN is already in Star since 8 months but the effects are barely perceptible. In fact, compared to other airlines, the recovery of traffic at SN has been way lower, which proves quite the opposite of a healthy growth.
You don't get it, don't you? There IS no lower unit cost from operating small planes!
Sure, CASM goes down if you operate a small turboprop iso an A320, but that is just half the story really, based on direct operating cost: the overhead costs, network cost, alliance membership costs and many more all remain the same however and need to be split out over less seats, thus driving the UNIT costs up, hence making it very hard to compete against competitors really, as the OS case has demonstrated.
No I don't, because it doesn't mean anything.
It depends really. More frequency means more yields, more seats.
A small turboprop like you like to call it can actually become big when it operates frequencies.
When the CASM is low, it doesn' tmatter how many frequencies you operate, the CASM stays the same.
So if the demand for an average fare of 200€ between BRU and MXP on a given day is 640 seats, you can operate 8 flights (4 inbound and 4 outbound) with CS100
or 12 (6 in and 6 outbound) flights with Q400 at lower cost.
The capacity will be 880 seats on CS100 versus 840 seats on Q400, so load factors on the Q400 will be slightly higher, but the CASM of the Q400 being lower, the cost to operate 840 seats with Q400 will be far cheaper than to operate 880 seats with CS100.
By providing 2 more frequencies, a few more passengers will find more convenience to fly with SN than with Easyjet and decide to opt for SN and the demand with 12 frequencies will actually rise to 680 seats.
So not only is the Q400 a tool for reducing cost, it also generates more revenues and traffic by putting more frequencies. Also, yields are higher because if we compare a 140 seat CS300 flight with two 70 seats Q400 flights 90 minutes apart, the demand for the 140 seats set 90 minutes apart will be higher as it covers a wider time spectrum. Yield management wise, it will be alot easier to fill 2 Q400's than to fill one CS100.
Such is the art of yield management.
I like Tolipanebas remark on "a fleet for the years to come". We need more but also larger planes.
I heard that idea in the mid-1990's. Didn't work.
Okay, that says enough. If NCB has no better reply he has to give up this idea and the case is closed. No turbo props to replace A320 series, B737 or Avro's.
Thank you for the swift reply.
I have a better reply to give. 134flyer's testimony is totally irrelevant because he is speaking of his experience on a Dash-8 Q400, not the Q400 Nextgen I am talking about. Two aircraft 11 years apart, but as Bombardier puts it:
"The Q400 NextGen aircraft represents the next step in the continuing evolution of the Q400 airliner.
The most striking, customer-driven changes to the Q400 NextGen aircraft are found in the cabin design.
The improvements erase any remaining perception that turboprop travel is anything less than a modern and comfortable experience.
