Wirraway
9th Aug 2003, 22:43
Sat "Australian financial Review"
Qantas keen to embrace sexy Brazilian
Author: Ben Sandilands
This is the Brazilian pin-up that you will find on the walls in the back rooms at Qantas, Virgin Blue and REX. It's not a giant Airbus or a sleek Boeing Dreamliner; it's an Embraer 190.
JetBlue, the funky New York City-based low-cost carrier, has just ordered 100 of them, scaring the daylights out of the likes of American and United.
They can't afford to buy a Tiger Moth between them as carriers like JetBlue rack up monster profits from low fares and smart work practices.
Qantas has been especially interested in evaluating the sexy Brazilian, available in various sizes from next month, because it could see off its unloved fleet of BAE 146s and its much-loved but range-challenged 717s.
You should be interested, too. The Embraer has no middle seats, and each pair of seats is wider than anything in economy class in any domestic jet today.
It would beat the pants off the stuffy little Dash-8s that QantasLink flies to Canberra and Coffs Harbour.
With between 70 and 115 seats, it's probably the right size to bring regular jet flights to Tamworth, Devonport, Dubbo, Newcastle, Broken Hill and similar corners of the country without the misery of turbo-prop turbulence and children barfing all over you.
If ever there was a jet sized for developing tourism and improving regional links for business travellers, this is it.
But the Embraer 190 is not the only red-hot seller in a game where most airlines are still in a state of post-September 11/post-Iraq/post-SARS trauma.
JetBlue has bought another 65 of the twice-as-large Airbus A320s and could have more than 200 of those 156-passenger jets in service by 2011.
Virgin Blue, which lusts after a regional jet like the Embraer range, has helped Boeing keep its venerable 737 as top of the pops, including other huge sales to AirTran and Southwest in the United States and the rude, crude but oh-so-cheap Ryanair in Europe.
For those who would like to fly more comfortably when they go overseas, all is not lost.
Boeing's new 200-passenger Dreamliner has no prospects as yet, since it is waiting to see how many international carriers actually live to fly another day, but it is arousing intense interest with a jet designed for whoever survives.
The Dreamliner has seats as wide as those of the broad Brazilian, and such big, round windows and such a curvaceous tail that the stitched-up American could almost be accused of resorting to sensuous design to win over the airlines.
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Qantas keen to embrace sexy Brazilian
Author: Ben Sandilands
This is the Brazilian pin-up that you will find on the walls in the back rooms at Qantas, Virgin Blue and REX. It's not a giant Airbus or a sleek Boeing Dreamliner; it's an Embraer 190.
JetBlue, the funky New York City-based low-cost carrier, has just ordered 100 of them, scaring the daylights out of the likes of American and United.
They can't afford to buy a Tiger Moth between them as carriers like JetBlue rack up monster profits from low fares and smart work practices.
Qantas has been especially interested in evaluating the sexy Brazilian, available in various sizes from next month, because it could see off its unloved fleet of BAE 146s and its much-loved but range-challenged 717s.
You should be interested, too. The Embraer has no middle seats, and each pair of seats is wider than anything in economy class in any domestic jet today.
It would beat the pants off the stuffy little Dash-8s that QantasLink flies to Canberra and Coffs Harbour.
With between 70 and 115 seats, it's probably the right size to bring regular jet flights to Tamworth, Devonport, Dubbo, Newcastle, Broken Hill and similar corners of the country without the misery of turbo-prop turbulence and children barfing all over you.
If ever there was a jet sized for developing tourism and improving regional links for business travellers, this is it.
But the Embraer 190 is not the only red-hot seller in a game where most airlines are still in a state of post-September 11/post-Iraq/post-SARS trauma.
JetBlue has bought another 65 of the twice-as-large Airbus A320s and could have more than 200 of those 156-passenger jets in service by 2011.
Virgin Blue, which lusts after a regional jet like the Embraer range, has helped Boeing keep its venerable 737 as top of the pops, including other huge sales to AirTran and Southwest in the United States and the rude, crude but oh-so-cheap Ryanair in Europe.
For those who would like to fly more comfortably when they go overseas, all is not lost.
Boeing's new 200-passenger Dreamliner has no prospects as yet, since it is waiting to see how many international carriers actually live to fly another day, but it is arousing intense interest with a jet designed for whoever survives.
The Dreamliner has seats as wide as those of the broad Brazilian, and such big, round windows and such a curvaceous tail that the stitched-up American could almost be accused of resorting to sensuous design to win over the airlines.
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