LDH after DH8B?

[Rowan McKeever]

Afternoon All

Just curious (and entirely hypothetically)... if, for some reason, the QantasLink Q200s stopped servicing/being able to service Lord Howe, what other aircraft options are there? ATR42, Do328, Saab 340, etc all need more runway than LDH has, but what kind of load penalty would they need to take if they were to use that runway? Would it be prohibitive?

Cheers
Rowan

[Shayne G]

Not directly answering your question but I see could see Qantas creating a subsidiary just for ops to Lord Howe Islands with their old Q200s as they will definately look at getting them out of the mainline fleet in the near future.

I do see flights being operated to LDH with second hand DHC-6 Twin Otters or brand new 400 series model Twin Otters by some other airline. I am not sure of the specifications of the aircraft but it probably can make it to LDH from a port in Australia.

Just my opinion!

[Max C]

Originally Posted by Shayne G

Not directly answering your question but I see could see Qantas creating a subsidiary just for ops to Lord Howe Islands with their old Q200s as they will definately look at getting them out of the mainline fleet in the near future.

They already do have a subsidiary doing LDH's. It's called QantasLink.

QF won't split it up any further as the costs in doing so would be prohibitive.

If the Q200's get phased out, then QF would just dump LDH and HOT I'd imagine.

Greenie's will never allow a runway extension to allow Q400 ops and cost of doing so would be enormous!

[Rowan McKeever]

Shayne, the Twotter cruises at 150kts so you're looking at upwards of 3hrs, at the moment with the Q200 it's only 2 hours. In that case I'd imagine it would go as Anthony suggests, LDH would just get dumped.

Anthony do you know, or are you able to estimate, what the load penalty for something like ATR42-500 would be? 6-8pax, maybe more? Also, I didn't realise HOT is in the same situation? What's the largest aircraft that can get in there without load penalties?

[Shayne G]

They already do have a subsidiary doing LDH's. It's called QantasLink.

I think you know what I meant!

Shayne, the Twotter cruises at 150kts so you're looking at upwards of 3hrs, at the moment with the Q200 it's only 2 hours.

That is true, but Concorde made travel faster and now its retired and we use slower aircraft again to serve the places Concorde once did. The new Twin Otters could work if "Q200s stopped servicing/being able to service Lord Howe". I think out of all the aircraft you have mentioned an Twin Otter would be cheaper to operate then all of them and would be able to use that runway because of its STOL capabilities with a full load.

what the load penalty for something like ATR42-500 would be? 6-8pax, maybe more

If your estimate is correct, an Twin Otter can carry roughly double that amount of people. However I do think if a DHC-6 Twin Otter operated to Lord Howe it would not use Sydney as the destination or departure port. Sure it may be slower but I think carrying more pax in one go might influence the decision too.

If Qantaslink retired their Q200s and Q200s cannot use Lord Howe like you mentioned I think some smaller airlines would consider using Twin Otters to Lorde Howe Island!

[Rob R]

If any other smaller airline was to take over they would go for the Dornier 228. It's a 200 to 220 knot machine carrying the same number of pax and is cheaper to purchase and operate.

[Rowan McKeever]

Sorry Shayne, by 6-8 pax I was meaning a penalty of that much, i.e. 40-odd seats available for sale. And I could be a long way off the mark too, one of the reasons for my question is that there isn't a lot of performance info publically available for ATRs unlike some other types, e.g. runway performance charts etc.

[Shayne G]

6-8 pax I was meaning a penalty of that much, i.e. 40-odd seats available for sale

Oops sorry Rowan for misunderstanding! But my pointless debate got you a pretty good answer...

If any other smaller airline was to take over they would go for the Dornier 228. It's a 200 to 220 knot machine carrying the same number of pax and is cheaper to purchase and operate.

I didn't really look into the specs of all the aircraft, I only was making a case for Twin Otter. I was surprised to see Twin Otter and Dornier 228 have very similar specs, but the Dornier 228 has a significant speed advantage. I would now say after comparison many airlines would prefer Dornier 228 but the Twin Otter may also make a decent replacement for Q200 aswell.

[Damian N]

What about a Caribou in Rex livery????

[Rob R]

You may also find another airline already operating Dash 8's such as Skytrans might have a go at it.