Guns, it's lekker to be back, thanks. From what I hear the guys at Airlink enjoy both the J41's and, off course, the ERJ135's tremendously. I won't elaborate on what has been fought before on this forum (performance differences between the J41 & Dash 8 and the ERJ135 & CRJ200) as we all know that the J41 and the ERJ135 are superior in performance.
The Canadian machines were built for snow and ice and minus temps - not for Africa (they may also be able to operate in Belgium I believe - are you reading Mr. Vandemr?
). Bottom line here is - only good stuff works in Africa.
Primkop is the new Nelspruit - called Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport. About 30 clicks north of Nellies.
I don't think Airlink is the jumping post for bigger airlines but they do lose the odd pilot here and there to SAA, Comair and Nationwide. This of course excludes the cadet scheme.
GT, I don't know what the plans for the J41's are but they must be getting long in the tooth now. I reckon a big drawback for the J41 was when BAe (?) imposed a reduced performance restriction on the aircraft after corrosion problems surfaced with the propellor blades. Only new blades can operate 'unrestricted' or something like that. With the limited production run of the J41 (104 aircraft?) the prop manufacturer has no further interest, so more and more J41's world-wide will become performance restricted in future. Maybe that's why the American operator opted out of their lease agreement.
I'm not a bean counter so cannot comment on differences in profitability between the two types. What I do know is that the ERJ is supposed to operate to a totally different profile than the J41. The J41 is essentially a short sector (I was told 1 hour or so is optimal) aircraft whereas the ERJ135 is for medium sector routes.
Cheers vir eers.