Salisbury, Maryland-based Piedmont Airlines and its parent company, American Airlines, soon must make decisions about the future of the regional carrier’s Bombardier Dash 8 fleet. Some of its aircraft will reach a limit on how many cycles they can perform, while others eventually will run up against a federal mandate requiring updated cockpits.
In a briefing last week at the Regional Airline Association (RAA) convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, Piedmont president Lyle Hogg said the Dash 8 fleet can perform 80,000 cycles under normal operations. Hogg said some of the airline’s 37 Dash 8s are already bumping against that cap and will need be retired within the next two years, while others will not reach it until after 2020.
Life extension
Bombardier has a life-extension program that will allow the Dash 8-100, which make up most of the airline’s fleet, to fly up to 120,000 cycles. In 2009, Norway’s Wideroe regional airline was announced as the program’s launch customer. However, Hogg said, the life extension is not viable for Piedmont, as it is “quite costly,” especially since it does not include cabin updates.
“It re-certifies most of the aircraft components, but what it doesn’t do is upgrade some of the creature comfort items like interiors,” he said. “You then have to invest a significant amount of money to upgrade the interior of the aircraft to what our passengers expect.”
The cycle issue is not the only concern. New federal guidelines require airlines to update their avionics by the 2020s, Hogg said, and it is not clear that Piedmont wants to pay for the updates. The new cockpit mandate is part of FAA’s satellite-based NextGen air traffic control (ATC) upgrade.
“A decision will have to be made as we get to closer to 2020 for the NextGen requirements,” Hogg said. “If the airplanes are only going to fly for a year or two behind 2020, do we want to invest to equip them with the avionics required under NextGen?”
Still, Hogg noted, the aircraft are important to American, mainly because the Dash 8 occupies a unique niche in the network. Most of Piedmont’s fleet consists of the 37-seat Dash 8-100, a small aircraft that allows American to fly to smaller markets that otherwise might not be able to support service. “The Dash 8 is the only aircraft that can serve some of those markets,” Hogg said.
Piedmont is starting to plan for the future. In February, Piedmont began flying Embraer E145s for American from Philadelphia. Piedmont has indicated it will receive a minimum of 20 E145s during 2016 and the first half of 2017.
ATW – Air Transport World
What will replace the Dash 8 at Piedmont Airlines?
