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Alliance Airlines may eventually look into larger narrowbody aircraft as it expands its fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) and charter operations, its new CEO says.
Speaking exclusively to Australian Aviation, Steven Greenway, who has taken the reins at Alliance from Stewart Tully and is beginning to execute the airline’s turnaround plan, said that while the E190 is a suitable aircraft for its current operations, upgauging may be on the table if demand requires it.
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“We’ve had a number of clients who have been interested in potentially a 737 or A320 operation. Nothing immediate, it’s something that we’ll look at in the future,” he said.
“We’re more concentrated on the E190-E1s replacing the Fokker 100s and 70s. Ultimately, that is what we’re focused on now, but once we start making some decent headway into that over the next year or so, we’ll then start looking at other fleet options as well.
“I go back to my LCC roots, which is I don’t really want different aircraft types in my fleet because it just creates complexity and cost and training and overheads and so forth.
“So, we will try to keep it as simple as we possibly can, and I would say that the two fleet types that we currently have is more than enough, albeit it doesn’t necessarily reflect where we’re going to be in the next four to five years.”
Greenway also said that the E190-E2 may be a future option for Alliance, but that he does not feel it is a mature enough platform to replace the airline’s E190-E1s at this stage.
“The E2 is a fantastic plane, but it’s not uncommon knowledge that the engines are just not mature. They’re not as durable as they should be. On-wing time is poor, and you see that with the A320neos with the Pratt & Whitneys and so forth, but also the Embraers and the A220s as well,” he said.
“The Achilles heel on all of those aircraft has been the Pratt & Whitney engine. Now, what you are seeing, as with the Leaps and CFM, because I was an operator in the Middle East with them, is you are seeing staged improvements in durability and reliability on those engines.
“In the next one to two years, they will be really good engines, but at the moment, an E2 fleet really does suffer from those engines in terms of durability and reliability.
“So, the E2 is probably too much of a stretch for us. It’s a very young aircraft. It’s not mature the way we like the E1s. Would we look at them in say 10 or so years’ time? Absolutely.”
Alliance is the world’s largest operator of the E190, with 41 currently in service. The airline has recently renegotiated its wet-lease agreement with QantasLink to bring seven of the regional jets back into its own fleet.
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