By Kenneth I. Swartz | June 29, 2015 Estimated reading time 11 minutes, seconds.
The success of any new commercial aircraft depends on getting the numbers right.
Billion dollar investments in new aerodynamic wing and fuselage configurations, lightweight materials, and fuel efficient new generation engines may look good on paper, but they need to be validated.
Aircraft flight test programs are designed to meet certification safety standards and provide the aircraft economic operating data essential to sell large fleets of passenger aircraft.
At the 2015 Paris Air Show, the new generation Bombardier C Series made the transition from a paper aircraft to a serious business contender in the 100 to 160-seat segment.
To be sure, the C Series has been flying since September 2013, but the prototypes were grounded for 100 days by a problem with the Pratt & Whitney PurePower PW1500G engines.
It has only been during the past few months that credible numbers on the C Series operating performance have begun to leak out.
By the Numbers
Finally, at the Paris Air Show, Bombardier had the confidence to update its “brochure numbers” after more than 1,800 hours of flight testing activity.
The Paris news conference was led by Fred Cromer, the new president of Bombardier Commercial Aircraft, and Colin Bole, the new vice president of sales and asset management. (Bombardier recently renewed its senior management team to add executives with extensive airline, aerospace manufacturing and aircraft leasing experience.)
Cromer said the all-new 110 to 133-seat CS100 and 135 to 160-seat CS300 aircraft are exceeding their targets for fuel burn, payload, range, and airfield performance, and will be among the quietest commercial jets in production.
The C Series is delivering more than a 20 per cent fuel benefit (per seat) compared to existing in-production aircraft, and a greater than 10 per cent advantage compared to re-engined aircraft.
The C Series maximum range has also increased from 2,800 nautical miles (5,464 kilometres) up to 3,300 nm (6,112 km), and airfield performance is better than expected.
Back in 2005, Bombardier unveiled a cabin mockup of its new C Series passenger jet at the Paris Air Show, with the “game changing” Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan (GTF) as its engine choice.
Bombardier had challenged leading engine makers – CFM International (CFM56), International Aero Engines (V2500) and Pratt & Whitney (PW6000) – to develop a new centerline engine with a 15 per cent operating cost benefit over current designs.
As the winner of that challenge, Pratt & Whitney (P&W) launched a geared turbofan demonstrator program to convince a skeptical airline industry of the new engine’s benefits. Ground demonstrations began in 2007, with the GTF fan and gearbox attached to a core based on the PW6000.
The GTF demonstrator engine flew for the first time on P&W’s Boeing 747SP in June 2008 at Plattsburgh, N.Y. Later, Airbus gained firsthand experience flying the new engine on an Airbus A340 flight test aircraft in Toulouse, France.
Ten years after Bombardier launched the C Series at Le Bourget, it is displaying its five largest aircraft outside its chalet, including the Global Express, CRJ1000 regional jet, Q400 turboprop, CS100 and CS300.
The parallel development of the CS100 and CS300 provides Bombardier with an opportunity to present not one, but two, business cases to potential airline customers.
Bombardier’s Cromer said that the 110-seat CS100 has a lower trip cost than competing aircraft, and the 130-seat CS300 has lower trip costs but similar seat mile costs (cost per available seat mile) to larger capacity aircraft with more than 160 seats.
That makes the aircraft attractive to legacy and regional airlines as well as low cost carriers (LCCs) in many regions of the world. It’s an interesting value proposition for airlines that have “up-gauged” to large Boeing and Airbus jets in the 160 to 200-seat range (to reduce seat mile costs).
Cromer spent many years in network planning in the U.S. airline industry before entering the aircraft leasing business. He says that when airlines up-gauge, they often have to discount fares to fill an aircraft and this dilutes yields. He believes there are many routes in the world where the C Series has the right capacity and operating economics to match passenger demand.
Historically, airlines require a 10 to 20 per cent economic benefit from a new aircraft model to overcome the commonality benefits of operating a single aircraft family in the 100 to 220-seat market.
In Bombardier’s view, “existing production aircraft” is understood to mean the Airbus A318/319 and Boeing 737-600/700NG aircraft models in the 100 to 150-seat class. The term “re-engined aircraft” is understood to mean the Airbus A320Neo (to be powered by the PW1100G-JM and GE LEAP-X), Boeing 737MAX (to be powered by the GE LEAP-X) and the Embraer E190/E195 E2 (to be powered by the PW1700/PW1900).
Cromer said the economic benefits are even more impressive when you compare the C Series to aging out of production jets, such as the BAE/Avro 146/RJ, Fokker F100 and McDonnell Douglas MD-80.
At Paris, Bombardier pulled its punches and held back some C Series news for a joint press conference with SWISS, its C Series launch customer.
In 2016, SWISS (Swiss International Airlines) will begin introducing the brand new Bombardier C Series aircraft as the successor to its existing Avro RJ100 fleet, which numbers 20 aircraft. A subsidiary of Lufthansa, SWISS had 30 CS100s on order, but at Paris announced it had converted 10 of these to larger CS300s, which will start entering service beginning in 2017 to replace 138-seat Airbus 319s.
Holding back data was a good tactic to increase media and customer interest. It also meant that competing aircraft manufacturers didn’t have “hard numbers” to work with to enter a “dog fight” with Bombardier on the first business day of the seven-day air show.
Journalists attending Le Bourget were invited aboard the CS100, painted in SWISS colours, to see a cockpit featuring four large flat panel displays and fly-by-wire sidestick controllers, and wide passenger cabin featuring 3+2 abreast seating spaced at different seat pitches, a wide aisle and spacious overhead bins.
The CS100 was flown non-stop from Mirabel, Que., to Paris with a crew of six.
The CS300 first flew in late February 2015 and is not yet approved to fly through RVMS (reduced vertical separation minima) over the North Atlantic, so it took a more northerly track that included a fuel stop in Keflavik, Iceland before continuing to Le Bourget.
Market Forecast
The Bombardier Commercial Aircraft market forecast for 2015 to 2034 was released at Le Bourget, and closely resembles the 2014 to 2033 forecast, except that Bombardier is no longer tracking aircraft demand in the 20 to 59-seat market.
In the 60 to 100-seat segment, Bombardier forecasts the fleet will grow from 2,900 to 6,900 aircraft, with 5,700 new deliveries and 1,700 retirements during the 20-year period.
In the 100 to 150-seat segment, the fleet is forecast to grow from 4,400 to 9,100 aircraft over 20 years, with 7,000 new deliveries and 3,300 retirements over the forecast period.
Delivery units were similar to the 2014 to 2033 forecast, with 60 to 100-seat deliveries increased by 100 units, and 100 to 150-seat deliveries decreased by 100 units.
