Bombardier CS100
 

I see that the CS100 demonstrator has just landed at LCY. Does anyone know if this is for airline benefit, or to get certified to be able to operate into LCY in the near future ?

I don't think you can separate the two.

As it is replacing the Avro RJ100 at Swiss i would think that LCY operational approval is quite important. Might be important for other airlines as well.

The aircraft has had members of Transport Canada and EASA on board during the validation flights.

So, it appears that it was for Bombardier to gain validation for London City operations, primarily at the behest of Swissair, but also with an eye on other operators such as Lufthansa according to my source ;-) I actually saw it on two of it's circuits, looked somewhat like the Sukhoi Superjet.

It remains to be seen whether DLH/CLH operate the CSeries in their own right to LCY (as opposed to the ones they have on lease to Swiss).

Clearly Swiss have a more immediate requirement to replace their RJs than Lufthansa Cityline have for their E190/E195s.

Just noticed it at 30000 heading west over Wales.

The aircraft flew direct to JFK.

I believe it is the first aircraft which was specifically designed and optimisd for LCY operations - meaning that it can easily operate into other challenging airports.

Slightly off topic, but relates to the CS100: It was mentioned to me, by someone who flew on it the other day, that for a modern and recent aircraft they found it surprisingly noisy in the cabin. Anyone else share the same experience?

Embraer might disagree with that:

“The capability for operating at London City Airport is something that we have promised to the market from the very beginning of the Embraer 170 design”

Dave - I think that the E-Jets were offered with an optional software pack that allows for LCY ops but were not optimised from the outset as such.

Well, considering the launch customer for the E-Jets back in the days was Crossair, whose RJ100s (after some shenanigans with a bankruptcy and and a german buyout) are now being replaced by the CS100, i guess a big thing in their specification would have been LCY access, wether it was optional or not, it must have been part of the original design.

I flew on it several times now and I don't find it that noisy within the cabin. The aircraft has been titled the "whisper jet" so - at least from the outside - it should be relatively quiet.




Generally I find the CS100 a huge improvement compared to the EMB or the RJ's. I hope it will get certified for LCY soon!

Swiss replaced their BAe/Avro RJ100s at London City some time ago with Embraer 190s operated by Swiss carrier Helvetic. I haven't seen a Swiss RJ in LCY for some months now, so the need seems to have gone. With Cityjet moving on to the Sukhoi, there aren't any other jet carriers at LCY with aircraft to replace.

Regarding showing it as a replacement for the BA service to New York, the A318 currently on this service has 2+2 business class seating. The Bombardier C-series is a whole economy normal seat row narrower than the Airbus (normally 2+3 instead of 3+3), 18" narrower I believe, so I'm not quite sure how you could fit the BA business class seats into it. Anyway, BA are unlikely to want to change their aircraft on the run. The A318 has zero resale potential, there's never been a secondhand sale of one, and some of this type only a couple of years old were broken up for parts, so it's only residuals for something still with plenty of forecast value in the BA accounts (attention Auditors).

Two of the ZRH rotations, LX464/5 and LX466/7, are still operated by RJs on some days. Yesterday's were HB-IYU and IYQ, respectively.