ffay005

I simply cannot understand why they didn't choose the A318, which is a full-size jet with more or less the same number of seats as the Embraers. Since the A318 is part of the A320 family, AY could use the same cockpit and cabin crews as well as maintenance, which should be a huge synergy benefit. They would basically only have one type of short-haul planes, which should make a lot of things a whole lot easier.

What benefit is there to use mini-size cramped and unreliable Brazilian toys where one cannot even sit properly (apart from row 1) that the passengers and, according to posts here, even crew very much dislike? I'm especially surprised and disappointed that they will use Embraers on the longer European flights such as IST. On a flight that long I would happily pay more for a TK ticket on a proper plane (they're surprisingly good, try them out if you go to IST!).

swiss_global

I fully agree with your complaints, but all of this only due to the seat/cabin layout AY (and nobody else!) has chosen! I've recently had E70/E90 flights in business class with both AC and AM and it was really pleasant Both had comfy seats (3 abreast in C) and also no issue with cold air in the forward cabin. As far as I could see, also the Y seats were different from AY, I think they looked like the Recaro Economy seat you find often on A32x, too.

FlyingFinn

The A318 suffers from the same problem as the B737-600: it's an arbitrarily constructed (i.e. shortened) small version from a plane that was really designed to be larger (A320/737-700/800). This results in quite bad fuel economics on a per seat basis. Pretty much the only reason why the A318 exists is the fleet commonality advantage which you pointed out - but apparently this doesn't offer enough savings vs. the increased fuel costs. The A318 has been a big failure for Airbus.

The E-jets were designed for the <100 seat market - this makes for much better fuel economics.

swiss_global

The fuel efficiencies of the Embraer E-Jets becomes intuitively clear if you look at the typical empty weight:

E90: 28 metric tons
E95: 29 metric tons

A318: 39 metric tons
A319: 41 metric tons

The "Babybuses" thus carry around roughly 40 percent more!

Richey66

A Little bit OT, but Estonian Air has chosen CRJ-900 NG with 88 seats as new planes, how are comfort and fuel efficiency of these planes compared to Embraers?

FlyingFinn

I would imagine the larger CRJs (esp. the NGs with improved engines) have quite similar economics than the E-jets. A CRJ-900 has an empty weight of around 30-32 metric tonnes (~.70K lbs).

The old CRJ-100/200s are not very efficient as 50 seats just isn't enough to achieve decent per seat economics. Maybe with a 100% load, but definitely not with your average 60-75% as often seen. That's why most airlines are trying to ditch them and use 70+ seat jets. For the sub-70 seat category the turboprops are simply superior.

swiss_global

Yes, that's right. The E-Jets and the (NG) CRJs are competing with similar features. And - to lead this back to the topic of the thread - both can be configured by the airline in a comfy or in a not so comfy way ...

Will be intersting to see if the much smaller Estonian Air will configure theirs better than AY? Although I doubt that this would impress AY.

myefre

Yeah a bump of the thread but it keeps me from starting my own

Has HEL-OTP been cancelled? Or is it seasonal? I don't see it next May. If it's seasonal, does anyone know when the schedule will be loaded?


Thanks

Gnopps

The last date it is scheduled to run is October 28th. It doesn't seem to have been loaded for the next summer (yet).

OH-LGG

Lyon (LYS) from April 2012 is now cancelled due to commercial reasons.

mosburger

My guess would be an Air Berlin codeshare via either DUS or BER/TXL instead.

TTL

Flybe routes: Flybe lentää reiteillä Helsingistä Enontekiölle, Jyväskylään, Kajaaniin, Kemiin, Kittilään, Kokkolaan/Pietarsaareen, Kuusamoon, Maarianhaminaan, Poriin, Savonlinnaan, Seinäjoelle, Varkauteen Gdanskiin, Norrköping, Skellefteåhon (Kokkolan kautta), Tartoon, Trondheimiin, Tukholman Bromman lentoasemalle ja Uumajaan sekä lisäksi, Oulu–Tallinna, Seinäjoki–Kittilä, Tallinna–Tukholma (Bromma), Tampere–Kittilä, Tampere–Kuusamo, Tampere–Tallinna, Turku–Kittilä, Turku–Tallinna, Vaasa–Tallinna.

WilcoRoger

TAY and GDN looks good on paper. However you can't do a one-dayer in TAY, as it arrives at 4 pm

OH-LGG

STR + IEV will be cancelled from Feb/Mar 2012.

NoWindowSeat

Piece by piece AY is coming down in central / eastern Europe..they don't even seem to be re-starting codesharing on the Kiev route with Ukraine International..it might be that they haven't updated their system yet as Ukraine (at least they used to) fly to KBP..anyway, sad times ones again for Finnair..