GF
Pick any decade you like since WW2 and you quickly discover how often this airline business has changed. Influences like fuel price, deregulation, and air agreements have had an enormous impact on its evolution. Continuous change and revamping never ends. But aircraft lifespans do. (Except those clapped out DC-3s)
The aircraft you list simply were temporary solutions and nowhere near as quiet, economical, or as environmentally friendly as the C Series. They might have simply been in the right place at the wrong time.
Airbus and Boeing have been telling the airlines they need large aircraft not small aircraft. Why? Because A&B don't build smaller regional airliners. Airline economy is in revenue seats so more seats is better for profit margins. They only modify current models by stretching, shrinking or strapping new engines on them to make their economics look good to the buyer and it doesn't hurt if the price tag is ridiculous because your pricing is based on a "cheaper by the dozen" sales approach. (Those deep discounts used to try and cut C Series out of the game will come back to haunt A&B in about 10-15 years as the resale, leasing and trade in values hit rock bottom. Today's buyers will be some pissed at A&B.)
Bombardier has spent over 30 years in the regional turboprop and regional jet markets and they know how and why those regional airlines were created. Scope clauses presented a huge obstacle and not just for legacy airlines and their unions. OEMs are directly impacted by those same frustrating scope clauses and the OEM that can find a way to circumvent the scope clauses will have found that magic recipe. The same recipe A&B use to stay away from regional airlines. DONT BUILD REGIONAL JETS.
Making Bombardier a serious threat now that they have entered that arena.
C Series is simply not a regional jet because it is out of scope. Too heavy with too many seats for regional airline purposes. Bombardier is providing legacy carriers with an ideal aircraft solution for scope headaches and legacy carriers are starting to see how this aircraft can get back the services surrendered out of necessity in the mid 80s because of uneconomical and elderly DC9s and 737s in operation at that time.
There's a reason Bombardier aren't aggressively selling regional jets like Embraer, Sukhoi, Mitsubishi and others because the regional airlines are becoming passé. They've quietly switched to customer support for those RJs while producing a new aircraft that could one day change the game yet again. I, for one, expect to see regional airlines shrink, or simply go out of business as their legacy partners deploy C Series to reclaim services and terminate commercial agreements.
Remember? The CRJ wasn't supposed to sell and many said it would kill this company. The day the CRJ was certified there were only 12 firm orders.
The C Series should have a very bright future for all the right reasons.
Willie
