Air France Considers New Jets
Since Lufthansa has already signed up to be the launch customer of Bombardier Inc., the aircraft seller may be able to land another top carrier as its customer for the new CSeries jets. Air France has said that they are actively considering purchasing the aircrafts, as well as the mid-haul aircrafts from Airbus and Boeing, for their regional and medium-range fleets. Brigitte Barrand, a spokesperson for Air France, said that as part of their medium-haul and regional fleet renewal programme, the airline is closely watching the developments in the CSeries programme of Bombardier, as well as their competitors’ projects.
Experts in the aviation industry have previously stated that the CSeries, which has 110 to 130 seats and offers a lower operating cost by 20%, fits well with Air France. Brit Air, the regional subsidiary of Air France, is a launch customer of Bombardier for the new CRJ1000, having 8 orders. A spokesperson for Bombardier wouldn’t confirm as to if the airline was having talks with their manufacturer based in Montreal or not. She did say, however, that they are having discussions with carriers across the world.
Air France also expressed their desire to upgrade part of their aging aircraft fleet of A320s. Jean-Cyril Spinetta, the CEO of Air France, recently talked about the need for Boeing and Airbus to make their renewal programmes quicker for their B737 and A320 families of aircrafts. The airline hopes to cut their cost of operations for the mid-haul sector, similar to the cut they achieved for their long-haul sector. Air France’s mid-haul fleet has the A320 family of aircrafts, which seats 123 to 206 passengers. However, both Boeing and Airbus have relegated an upgrade programme such as this to be on hold.
Get more information from www.airfrance.com
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.