Qantas orders more turbo props for regional commuter markets
An article in The Herald Sun this morning by Geoff Easdown says that Qantas has opened its war chest yesterday and committed tens of millions of dollars for new aircraft to defend its dominance of the regional commuter market.
With Virgin Blue about to expand its regional operations with a new all-jet fleet of Brazilian-built Embraer aircraft, the national carrier said it would buy 12 Canadian-built Q400 turbo-prop planes, worth more than $33 million apiece.
The 72-seat aircraft comprise the first part of a 36-plane deal with Bombardier done in direct response to Virgin’s decision to introduce the 20 Embraers to routes across regional Australia.
Qantas has taken options and also has been granted purchase rights for another 24 aircraft, taking the total value of 36-plane order to about $1.19 billion.
Qantas head of regional air services Narendra Kumar said last night that Qantas took the decision to buy aircraft that matched the needs of particular routes.
“We have jets in our QantasLink fleet which we can redeploy if and when they are needed,” said Mr Narendra, indicating that QantasLink’s 11 Boeing 717 jets could be brought into action against Virgin.
“We also have another three 717s at the moment that are not being utilised.”
He said the Canadian Q400s, which first flew in an earlier version as Dash 8s, were being bought to operate from ports that were better served by turbo-prop aircraft.
The national carrier’s regional offshoot QantasLink expects passenger numbers to grow 19 per cent a year from July next year to June 2010.
But Virgin Blue believes that the Qantas operated turbo-props will be no match for its new generation E-jets, which offer much wider seats and more legroom than on all other domestically operated aircraft.
“We believe our E-jets will compete very well with their turbo-prop competitors, ” said Heather Jeffery, Virgin’s head of corporate affairs, in response to the Qantas Q400 deal.
Brett Godfrey, her boss and chief executive of Virgin Blue, was far more forthcoming in an interview last month with BusinessDaily.
“Where people have to make a choice they will prefer to fly on jets than on turbo-prop planes,” he said.
Virgin’s first E-jet, registered VH-ZHA, a 72-seat 170 model, enters service today on the Brisbane to Cairns route, following the arrival yesterday of a second 72-seat aircraft.
Virgin expects to introduce the remaining 18 Brazilian-built Embraer E-jets over the next two years.
Purchase contracts for the new planes would be completed by the end of the month.
A Report by The Mole from The Herald Sun
John Alwyn-Jones
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