What is the current situation with outstanding orders for Q400's?
In their report published in late 2008, they indicated that they had firm orders for 60 Q400 aircraft, to arrive by October 2009.
To date, they have taken delivery of 56 brand new aircraft (the last was G-FLBE) and three future delivery slots were passed to Olympic last summer. This seems to leave one aircraft outstanding and possibly three more to come, if the Olympic slots were deferred to a future date and not cancelled altogether, or the frames simply sold to Olympic unused.
I am aware that a further four a/c from the BE fleet are currently operating for Olympic on an ACMI basis, and are indirectly replaced by the ex-SAS ones (G-ECOV/W/Y/Z), which are not part of the 56 mentioned, with a further two leased (or sold?) to Olympic (G-JECV/W) and now on the Greek register. Overall, this all means they currently have an active fleet of 54 Q400's in the UK market, 50 delivered new, plus the four ex-SAS ones (are you keeping up!).
Does anyone know if BE have now permanently revised their Q400 fleet size downwards, or if there are still four to come, and if so, when. The answer must have a material impact on their future plans for expansion, development or acquisitions.
Last edited by Tonyq; 12th Jan 2010 at 15:45.