Following a series of serious crash landings last year, SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) decided to stop operating Bombardier Q400 Dash 8 type in October 2007.
A debate between the manufacturer and the airline started right after the decision was made. Investigations showed that in all cases the source of the indients was the landing gear. Therefore it was not just Bombardier involved in the discussions; Goodrich, the manufacturer of the landing gears also took part.
Finally the three parties came to a very strange agreement. SAS will receive a compensation of approximately 165 million dollars. The weird part of the agreement is that SAS orders 27 new Bombardier aircrafts and 13 of the new planes will be Q400s. This means that a few months after SAS refused to continue the operation of Q400s, it orders 13 new ones.
Although the spokesman of the airline said the Q400 NextGen is modified in several ways compared to the old ones, still it looks a little bit strange for me.
Luckily I am not the CEO of the airline, nor am I in the board of directors. It must have been a tough situation to decide on the signing of such an agreement. I am wondering how they will communicate this to their passengers.
I am interested in your opinions about it. I recommend this video to everyone interested in this topic.
Uh…another “near miss” for me…I was flying one of these with AUA from VIE to BUD this week…:/
Did you? Oh, ok. And if you were to fly an SAS Q400 after knowing about all these incidents, would you believe the airline that you are safe?
I guess I wouldn’t
The situation is the following: SAS Group will order all these aircrafts that include Q400 NextGens (14), and CRJ 900 NextGens (13) as firm orders. The CRJ’s are to fly within the SAS and Estonian Air fleets, while the Q400 NextGen’s will be operated by the subsidiaries of SAS: Wideroe and airBaltic. So there will be no new Q400’s in SAS livery, thus officially SAS itself will not have to explain anything to their passengers about this aircraft type ever again.
ah ok, it wasn’t clear for me.
And SAS has actually sold its Q400’s for now:
SAS Group has sold six Q400s to Philippine Airlines, a spokesperson confirmed to ATWOnline, and has sold and delivered one to Swedish aviation company Nordflyg, which will use the aircraft on cargo services. However, SAS said its sale of four Q400s to Austrian Airlines Group has not been completed despite an announcement to the contrary from AAG. It said there has been considerable interest from around the world in its grounded turboprops.
by ATW News
I reckon this “agreement” might have an ill affect on SAS’s rumored Superjet 100 order, if there ever was one. I’ll still keep my fingers crossed. Would be nice to see some major player like sas to break the ice between the supajet and the western airlines