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Ansett New Zealand is acquiring a second-hand de Havilland Dash 8 through Bombardier’s Aircraft Trading Unit. The new Dash 8 will join three others already in the Ansett ### Nz fleet and will allow the airline to start services between Wellington and Hamilton and to increase frequencies on other routes. The Dash 8 is scheduled to enter service in late March. Pictured is current Ansett New Zealand Dash 8 fleet member ### Zk-nev at Palmerston North. (Peter Clark)
Newsdesk — Commercial Aviation
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Commercial Concorde Speeds On
Concorde celebrated 20 years of commercial service in January, and British Airways is planning to keep the world’s only supersonic transport in service for another two decades. Since the inaugural service from London Heathrow to Bahrain on January 21, 1976, BA’s seven Concordes have made some 42,000 flights, logged more than 120,000 hours (of which 100,000 have been supersonic) and flown over 200 million kilometres. As the airline says, it has more experience of supersonic flight than all the world’s air forces combined, and its passengers can enjoy a glass of champagne at twice the speed of sound and 60,000 feet without having to don a G-suit!
Concorde’s relatively low utilization and the heat generated in the airframe by flying at Mach 2 (which dries any moisture which may have gathered in the structure) have combined to keep the airframes very young. The Concordes are almost completely free of corrosion and their condition is equivalent to a subsonic airliner which is only three or four years old. This in combination with the stringent checks and rebuilds it undergoes ensure Concorde’s long-term future. A static test airframe has been taken to the equivalent of 21,000 flight cycles without problems — the most used of BA’s Concordes has fewer than 6,000 cycles logged while Air France’s aircraft have even lower figures. The story of the Concorde and two other pioneering airliners of the postwar era — the Vickers Viscount and De Havilland Comet — is told in the third of Stewart Wilson’s Legends of the Air book series, available this April.
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United Hushkits 727/737s
United Airlines has decided to fit hushkits to some of its fleet of Boeing 727s and 737-200s so they can remain in service into the next century. The airline currently operates over 80 727s and about 70 737-200s, all of which will become redundant in 2000 thanks to new noise regulations. The airline has not yet announced how many of the aircraft will be hushkitted or to whom it will award the contract. It also intends giving the converted aircraft an extensive cockpit upgrade which will be compatible with the Future Air Navigation System (FANS).
Boeing Back On Top
Boeing put itself back on top of the jet airliner sales charts in 1995, with orders for 346 aircraft, more than treble that of its rivals, Airbus and McDonnell Douglas. The Boeing order book for 1995 is worth $US31.2bn ($A42bn) and comprises 176 737s, 39 747s, 13 757s, 26 767s and 92 777s, the latter all for export and reflecting the big orders received from Singapore Airlines and Saudia. Of the 737 orders, 129 are for the new -600/700/800 family. Boeing’s share of the year’s market was 69.7% in terms of units and about 74% in terms of dollar value, both excluding the regional jet market.
Boeing’s good sales news coincided with the end in mid-December of the 10-week strike at its factories by members of the machinists union. The union voted to go back to work after a deal was struck with the manufacturer which had seen about 30 deliveries delayed (including some to Qantas) and a similar number of new aircraft not completed. Despite this, Boeing still plans to deliver about 210 aircraft in 1996.
Airbus recorded 106 orders in 1995 worth $US7.0bn and comprising two A300s, four A310s, 30 A319s, 39 A320s, 12 A321s, 9 A330s and 10 A340s.
The biggest turnaround was achieved by McDonnell Douglas, which received orders for 11 MD-11s, 53 MD-80/90s and 50 MD-95s, a total of 114 aircraft worth $US4.1bn. McDonnell Douglas’ commercial aircraft activities reached their lowest point in 1994 when only about 20 were ordered and most of these were negated by cancellations. Nevertheless, MDC’s 1995 result relies heavily on ValuJet’s 50 aircraft launch order for the MD-95.
The figures presented above are a gross figure as the net total (taking cancellations into account) is not yet available. As it stands, the total of 566 orders for the year is a considerable improvement on 1994’s depressed figure of just 268.
Ansett New Zealand is acquiring a second-hand de Havilland Dash 8 through Bombardier’s Aircraft Trading Unit. The new Dash 8 will join three others already in the Ansett NZ fleet and will allow the airline to start services between Wellington and Hamilton and to increase frequencies on other routes. The Dash 8 is scheduled to enter service in late March. Pictured is current Ansett New Zealand Dash 8 fleet member ZK-NEV at Palmerston North. (Peter Clark)
Pratt & Whitney For Malaysian 747s
Malaysian Airlines has ordered 45 Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines to power the new batch of 747-400s it has ordered in a deal potentially worth over $US400m to the US engine manufacturer. Malaysian will buy 40 PW4056 engines for the ten 747-400s it has on firm order plus five spares. If the airline exercises its options on more 747s, an additional 12 PW4056s will be required. Malaysian Airlines had previously selected the PW4168 for its fleet of Airbus A330s and the PW4056 for its nine original 747-400s.
Big BA Order Coming
British Airways has asked five manufacturers to submit proposals for the supply of up to 60 new airliners to replace Boeing 737-200s on UK domestic routes and on services to Europe from Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh. The order will comprise 30 firm with 30 options and an announcement as to the winner is expected by the northern hemisphere summer this year with deliveries to begin early in 1997. BA is looking for regional jets in the 80, 100 and 120 seat categories.
The five manufacturers involved in the bidding are Boeing (737-500 or -600), AI(R)/Avro (Avro RJ85 and RJ100), Airbus (A319), McDonnell Douglas (MD-95) and Fokker (70 and 100). BA’s 737-200s are late production aircraft delivered in 1983-84 and some of them will be transferred to Deutsche BA, in which British Airways has a 49% stake. The airline is traditionally a Boeing customer and has never ordered jet airliners from either Douglas or Airbus, although 10 A320s and several DC-10s
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