Issue 244: Attack of the E-Jets

Clearly the E-Jet will play a big part in Virgin Blue’s future, complementing the existing 55 strong Boeing 737 fleet.

The E-Jets will be deployed on what Virgin Blue calls a “plethora” of new regional routes, but they will also allow it to better match aircraft size to passenger demand on routes where the 737 is too large to be economic.

“These aircraft will bring increased capability for matching seat offerings to demand in a developing network,” said Virgin Blue CEO Brett Godfrey. “This added flexibility initially provides a range of new operating opportunities in Australia and, potentially, for short haul routes to New Zealand and the South Pacific. ” Virgin Blue’s E-Jet attack on regional routes began to take shape on September 11 when its first 78-seat E-170, VH-ZHA Belle-Issimo Blue, touched down at Brisbane Airport after completing its week long delivery flight from Brazil, South America (see Jeff Watson’s delivery flight story from page 36).

Virgin Blue’s first 104-seat E-190, VH-ZPA, is due for delivery in February and entry into service in April. It will be the first of type in the world to have a 120-minute ETOPS rating. The first E-190 will be Virgin Blue’s fourth E-Jet to be delivered.

“We have spent the past four years investigating aircraft options to give us maximum efficiency, economies of scale and the ability to venture into new markets currently serviced by turboprops,” said Godfrey.

Having made its choice for the Embraer E-Jets to grow its regional services Virgin Blue says it was by far the right decision.

“The E-Jet is particularly ideal for markets that require high frequency for corporate and government guests. ”

“It emerged relatively quickly that the Embraer was the front runner – it always was in terms of capability; in terms of its costs; in terms of attractiveness as a product for our guests,” said chief financial officer Keith Neate.

At list prices the 20 E-Jets are valued at $850 million, so the level of investment in introducing a new type is not insignificant.

“This isn’t a two minute wonder for us, we see it as a long term investment,” said Neate.

“The return we will achieve from putting the Embraer fleet into the domestic network recovers the investment many, many times over. ” So what competitive response does Virgin Blue expect from Qantas? “We’ve seen it already,” said Neate “They have already lifted capacity on some of the ‘regional’ routes they think we’re going to target. There will be pricing, there will be capacity, which is quite a remarkable reaction from them on the basis that they have always said those routes are well serviced, then all of a sudden we’re coming and up goes capacity and down go the prices. ”

No More Dashing For A Dash

Three days after VH-ZHA’s arrival in Australia, Brett Godfrey announced the airline will use the E-Jets to re-launch Canberra-Sydney services, critical to a credible attack on the profitable government corporate travel business. Flights will begin from February 4 next year (after the Christmas break and in time for the resumption of parliament), with 108 direct flights per week, eight return dailies on weekdays, seven on Saturdays and Sundays.

“With the E-Jets parked at an aerobridge there will be no more dashing for a Dash on those wet winter mornings,” Godfrey quipped to guests at a black tie dinner at Canberra Airport to officially open the airline’s lounge there in what used to be the old Ansett Golden Wing lounge.

Virgin Blue has dubbed the new Canberra- Sydney flights its ‘Capital Jet’ service and announced a $99 launch fare (unmatched by Qantas at the time of writing). The airline had made the Canberra to Sydney route a priority, and believes it is now better positioned to offer these flights than it was when it withdrew from its first attempt on the route in 2004.

“The E-Jet is particularly ideal for markets that require high frequency for corporate and government guests,” said Godfrey. “Support from government travellers was essential because the Sydney-Canberra route was virtually devoid of leisure traffic. ” With a loyalty rewards scheme, a growing route network, ‘corporate-style’ lounge facilities, and fully flexible fares now in place, Godfrey believes the airline has done just about everything possible to better service the government traveller.

But Australia’s second airline faces a tough challenge in dislodging business from Qantas, which schedules 324 direct flights a week between Canberra and Sydney operated by a mix of 737s and QantasLink Dash 8s (-200s, -300s, Q400s). Earlier this year Qantas announced an order for an additional two Q400s for delivery in January 2008 to allow it operate an all 737/Q400 schedule on the Canberra-Sydney run, in an apparent competitive response to the then likelihood of Virgin Blue using its newly ordered E-Jets on services to the national capital.

Virgin Blue says it has around five per cent of the federal government market and is aiming for a 33 per cent share.

Apart from frequencies there will remain other points of difference between Qantas and Virgin Blue, but Virgin no doubt believes having to reach into your own pocket to buy a drink on board is more than outweighed by the benefit of walking from a lounge, down an aerobridge and straight onto a jet, rather than facing the prospect of a Dash 8 turboprop flight. No matter the realities compared to perceptions, passengers consistently prefer jets over turboprops. Then there is business class available on Qantas jet services, but VB does

“With the E-Jets parked at an aerobridge there will be no more dashing for a Dash on those wet winter mornings. ”

offer increased seat pitch ‘Blue Zone’ seats at the front of its E-Jets.

The Canberra-Sydney E-Jet flights will take Virgin Blue’s number of weekly departures from Canberra from 58 to 120 – a 107 per cent increase in frequency.

In the coming weeks Virgin Blue will be announcing other new regional destinations it intends flying to after visits to the ports by the airline’s validation teams are completed.

It is believed centres such as Albury, Bathurst, Dubbo, Wagga, Tamworth, Port Macquarie and Port Lincoln are in Virgin Blue’s sights, as well as ski season services to Cooma and Mt Hotham – assuming Virgin Blue and the airports can agree on who pays for the necessary security upgrades required for a jet RPT serviced airport.

“On some of the key routes it will fly on, where the competition isn’t a jet aircraft at present, we think it’s going to blow the competition away,” promised Neate.

When Virgin Blue Buys A Plane It Goes To Rio!

Virgin Blue invited a small delegation of its staff plus some media representatives to travel to Brazil for the official handover of VH‑ZHA at Embraer’s São José dos Campos plant, a little over an hour north of São Paulo, one of the largest cities in the world.

A tour of Embraer’s E-Jet production lines revealed a hive of activity. In the fuselage assembly area was Virgin Blue’s third E-170, to be registered VH-ZHC, while over in the final assembly hangar was Virgin’s almost complete second E‑170, VH-ZHB, which was expected to arrive in Australia about October 23.

In fact Embraer, as the world’s third largest commercial aircraft manufacturer, is struggling to keep pace with demand for its popular E-Jet series. Virgin Blue’s order for 20 is a small part of the 655 strong E-Jet order book, with the current backlog around 399 aircraft worth $US15. 6 billion (A$17. 6 billion) at list prices. To cope, Embraer is putting on more workers to lift production from the current eight aircraft to 14 aircraft per month from early 2008.

Ramping up E-Jet production and preparing to build the Phenom light business jets is taking a toll on Embraer’s bottom line. However, the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer has its eyes firmly set on growth, and eventually aims to produce larger aircraft, initially in the 737/A320 category as it moves well beyond its traditional regional airliner niche.

So far more than 200 E-Jets have been delivered since service entry in 2004.

They are currently operated by 20 airlines in 16 countries. Embraer is also developing a corporate jet variant of the E-Jet in the form of its Lineage 1000 development of the E-195 (the largest member of the E-Jet family).

Mini-me

Virgin Blue’s E-Jets won’t quite feature business jet levels of passenger comfort, but they offer passengers as much space as on the airline’s 737s.

The secret is the E-Jet’s oval-shaped cross section, which allows four abreast seating (no dreaded middle seat) with seats slightly wider than in the 737. The overhead luggage bins are generous and moulded into the roof, giving ample head room when getting into the window seat.

Generous cabin height, all leather seating and large windows give the cabin an impression of spaciousness and comfort usually reserved for much larger jets.

Not that the E-Jet is that small. To the average traveller the E-Jet probably looks somewhat like a slightly smaller737. Interestingly, the E-190 is just three metres shorter in length than the 737- 800 and is two and a half metres longer than the 737-700.

The first two rows in Virgin Blue’s E-170s, and the first four rows in its E‑190s, will offer Blue Zone seating with a seat pitch of 39in (99cm).

Behind that is standard economy seating with a pitch of 31in (79cm), a little less than its 737s’ 32in (81cm).

Nonetheless, a 78-seat VB E-170 will seat barely more than half the passengers a VB 737-700 does (144).

For now, Virgin Blue’s E-Jets are not fitted with the ‘Live2Air’ in-flight entertainment system it has fitted to some of its 737 fleet. “Live2Air is something we are keeping an open mind on and we’ll address it down the track,” Scott Roworth, manager of Virgin’s E-Jet program, told Australian Aviation.

JetBlue Airways in the US has a similar LiveTV system fitted to its E-190 fleet, but its system uses satellites serving the northern hemisphere. Locally, the satellite system for Virgin Blue’s Live2Air operates differently and would require some substantial re-engineering to work on the E-Jets.

“There would be a further process of redevelopment required for it to work on the Embraers and be operational here.

Plus, the technology has to be developed so it’s much smaller than the equipment on the 737s in order for it to be installed on our Embraers,” explained Roworth.

Externally, the first E-Jet introduces the revised ‘Virgin’ signature logo on the tail and winglets being introduced globally for the Virgin brand. Virgin Blue is introducing the new straighter signature to remain consistent with other Virgin brands and operations, with the revised logo eventually to be applied to its entire fleet.

Introducing A New Breed

Introducing a second type into service is new territory for Virgin Blue, which until now had stuck to the low cost carrier model of operating a single type fleet.

The airline will commence initial E-Jet operations later this year with four management pilots who commenced their training in Zurich in January. A second group of senior 737 captains is currently completing E-Jet training and will make up the first contingent of check and training captains.

“The following groups of pilots training will be 737 FOs (first officers) who have volunteered to come and join the Embraer pilot group and will receive command upgrades and will become our first group of line captains,” explained Roworth.

Virgin Blue had a good response from its 737 pilot group wanting to migrate across to the Embraer fleet, meaning the airline will be recruiting to fill FO positions on both its Embraer and Boeing fleets.

“The FO positions on the Embraer fleet will generally be recruited externally, working to the assumption that there wouldn’t be too many 737 first officers who would want to move across to the Embraer as an FO. ” Behind the flightdeck, Virgin Blue’s initial E-Jet cabin crew conducted a three day European endorsement course with Swiss Aviation Training (SAT) in Zurich before attending JetBlue Airways in Orlando, Florida, for further detailed training.

“SAT was like our foundation training before we went to JetBlue and completed their in-house training using their cabin trainer, which could be described as a real E-Jet but without engines,” said Jodi Boyce, compliance advisor – regulatoryaffairs. “Our time learning from JetBlue was priceless. Their story is not dissimilar to ours as the E-Jet is their second type to be introduced and they are a young airline like us, so we really learned a great deal from them – we are in such a better position for doing that. ” Virgin Blue has its own cabin trainer on order from RP Aero Systems in the UK which is due for delivery to its training centre at Brisbane Airport in February. Over wing exit and main door trainers have already arrived and are currently being used to train cabin crew.

“Eventually we will end up having our entire cabin crew group trained on both aeroplanes in order to give us maximum flexibility. It’s not necessary initially but we’ll phase this in,” said Scott Roworth.

A common type E-Jet flight simulator, manufactured by Flight Safety International, will be installed at Virgin Blue’s simulator facility it shares with Alteon at Brisbane Airport in January to be used for flight training from the end of February. The simulator features the Rockwell Collins EP1000 visual system and will be the first in Australia to use electric motion.

“We designed our implementation program a little bit differently to the way some operators have done,” explained Roworth. “Rather than creating an isolated project team that has gone off and done all the implementation work, and then handed over the completed project to the business at the end, we took the view early on that this program was very large and reasonably complex and needed to be owned by the business at all levels. So we basically took an integrated approach for the E-Jet’s implementation into service.

“My hope and expectation is that as the aircraft arrives and runs through its final induction processes back home that it will very gently slide into service and will be a painless and seamless experience. ”

A Red Dawn

After arriving in Brisbane the E-170 underwent ‘buyer installed equipment’ modifications with Virgin Blue to prepare it for operations. This included the installation of galley carts, hot water boilers, specific emergency equipment, document storage, and infant seat belts.

Certification for the E-Jet to operate with the remotely controlled PowerPush units also continues. Virgin Blue will be the first E-Jet operator to use the units, manufactured by Schopf near Stuttgart in Germany, which attaches to one of the aircraft’s pair of main wheels.

Virgin Blue took the E-170 on validation flights during September and October to a number of its east coast ports, giving ground and maintenance crews a chance to become familiar with the new aircraft type before it is used on revenue flights.

“In readiness for the E-Jets our spares inventory has been in the process of distribution for some months now around the network to the ports we’ll operate from,” said Roworth.

Service entry is scheduled for late October on existing Virgin Blue routes, to start with Brisbane-Cairns and Brisbane-Canberra. With only a handful of aircraft initially, Virgin Blue will not have the critical mass to start E-Jet services in earnest until the first quarter of next year.

“It’s obviously a very significant cost to introduce a new type – it’s been a very large and complex program,” said Roworth. “We are currently under budget in terms of our expectations so we are very happy with it. ”