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]

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. :D

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. :D

I think you know what I meant! :D

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! :D

[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! :D 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???? :D:D:D

[Rob R]

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

[Kent Broadhead]

LDH is part of NSW, and I can't see a government allowing the air link to be broken in this day and age, whether that meant supporting an operator to take a weight penalty or, if forced to, extending the runway.

[Richard H.]

What about a Caribou in Rex livery???? :D:D:D

Perhaps they should resurvey the lagoon and Jetstar should aquire a couple of Be-200s? :eek:

[Rob R]

Spot on Richard.
Jetstar=Impulse=Oxley=B200's and PA31's, problem solved.

[Jakef]

Interesting thread.... You don't really think of commercial operations which need some good STOL characteristics... I'm sure some of those Caribou's the RAAF has gotten rid of could be converted and easily handle that runway :D

[Richard H.]

Actually Rob I was being far less subtle than that.
I was referring to the Beriev-200 Altair jet flying-boat, not the far more sensible King Air... ;)

[Kent Broadhead]

Perhaps they should resurvey the lagoon and Jetstar should aquire a couple of Be-200s? :eek:

That'd be so much fun taking off from Rose Bay - I still have vague memories of the Airlines of NSW Shorts doing the LDH run form Rose Bay.

But I reckon a subsidised DHC? run is a million times more likely....

[Hugh Jarse]

Why would Eastern cease operations to Lord Howe, especially when it's such a cash cow for them, Rowan?

The youngest of the -200's would have close to 40,000 hours now, with no sign of giving up. I suspect they have a lot of life (and a lot to contribute) to Eastern's bottom line for quite a few years yet.

Hypothetically ridiculous if you ask me :)

[Rowan McKeever]

I agree, the DH8 is going really well and has some nice little niches carved out for itself. Honestly, I doubt QLink would cease LDH and I've never thought that they might. That wasn't really my point.

The reason I put this up was to confirm my understanding (and satisfy my curiosity) that there really IS no alternative to the DH8 given the STOL and range requirements. As I originally said there isn't a lot of stuff on the net about performance for the ATR, etc unlike Boeing/Airbus/Embraer. That's all this was about.