Airlink and New Embraer Fleet

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Ockie

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So my sister flew back from Cape Town to Joburg on the new Airlink Embraer E195-E2

She was amazed by the plane. She said the plane was simply amazing. Nicest plane she has been on, and that includes Lufthansa A380. When she got back home (me being a bit of a airplane geek), asked her how quiet those Pratt & Whitney engines really were (that is one of their selling points on the PW1000 models) and she said she could not believe it.

Taking off it was like a fan running in the background. And then she mentioned how quickly they climbed out of Cape Town. She said it felt like a very short take off run compared to what she is used to and before she knew it, they were above the clouds. I told her the E2 is designed to operate from airports with very short runways and climb quickly. Would not think they would do this at Cape Town though. Surely that uses more fuel.

She has nothing but praise for Airlink though.
 
Around 2014-2016 or thereabouts, I flew quite a lot on Airlink - specifically from ORTIA to Kruger Mpumalanga Airport & back again - trips varied between using flights on their Embaer ERJ-135 & ERJ-140 aircraft, as well as on their Avro RJ85 / RJ100 aircraft.

1793948989516.png

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True. We had the kids karate championship trip to PE about 2 months back and we booked with them, was the cheapest my wife said. The kids noted that the plane looks kinda small, for what they were used to, blerriê spoilt, since their last two flights were long international with Qatar and Emirates.

This was one of the nicest experiences, compared to the days gone by with Mango & Kulula. Small, well maintained, clean, bright. Yes, that quick in the air feeling is true, one of the clearest Captain comms we ever heard. Staff was also on point. Had a private jet type feeling, only half the seats were taken.

We were still munching on our decent in-flight meal and Captain came on comms again to prepare for landing - kids LOL'ed and mostly choked as they rushed to finish. As they were used to watching between 5 to 10 movies.
 
I was not going to mention this guys, but when my sister had her boarding pass scanned at the gate, the scanny thingy majiggy made a funny noise. My sister started to panic thinking she had been flagged for something. The gate attendant in Cape Town had a look and was like, oh Ms Le Roux, you have been upgraded to Business Class. Brand new damn Embraer E195-E2 and she gets it.... WTF????? I am the one that loves airliners.

Here is what she got for her lunch to Joburg -

Ehm, crackers, cheeses, sum dried tomato en olives starter.
Roast beef on a molded stack of mustard flavored yellow rice grains, fried eggplant, broccoli and and baby corn.
A piece of chocolate cake with rich choc mouse and raspberries

She even told me when she got home she felt bad for the people in the back because she was upgraded (does not know why), and they made a announcement that the lunch served will be chicken mayo bagels. But hell, I love chicken mayo....but damn...that business class mean is something else. Served on real plates, real glass etc.

She said it was actually the best meal she had on a airline ever, and that includes when she was also upgraded to business class on Lufthansa A380 (dont get me started .... I still have not gotten over the fact she has not only flown on the A380, but got upgraded to bloody class (AGAIN....or previously anyway....this trip was a few years ago to Spain)
 
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She took a video of the landing through the window, but I see I need to upload to social media to post it here.

She said the pilot came in hot. Fast decent through the clouds at JHB and speed felt very high compared to what she is used to, but in the video I can see, yes, fast landing.....touch down....PERFECTION!
 
Ockie said:
So my sister flew back from Cape Town to Joburg on the new Airlink Embraer E195-E2

She was amazed by the plane. She said the plane was simply amazing. Nicest plane she has been on, and that includes Lufthansa A380. When she got back home (me being a bit of a airplane geek), asked her how quiet those Pratt & Whitney engines really were (that is one of their selling points on the PW1000 models) and she said she could not believe it.

Taking off it was like a fan running in the background. And then she mentioned how quickly they climbed out of Cape Town. She said it felt like a very short take off run compared to what she is used to and before she knew it, they were above the clouds. I told her the E2 is designed to operate from airports with very short runways and climb quickly. Would not think they would do this at Cape Town though. Surely that uses more fuel.

She has nothing but praise for Airlink though.
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I flew on it 2 weeks ago. It is very impressive and very nice. The lighting at night was awesome too. And yeah very quiet
 
neoprema said:
I flew on it 2 weeks ago. It is very impressive and very nice. The lighting at night was awesome too. And yeah very quiet
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Well...go to Brazil and you might get sand crabs in your arse in Rio, or get kidnapped .... but damn Embraer makes good planes.....but big up to Pratt also ... it is their engine on these planes. Yes ... they have teething issues with the geared fan (not so much the gear, but some maintenance issues etc and planes being grounded .... but this is a almost new design. Not even CFM wanted to go the geared route. Rolls Royce.....they now getting there with gearing their engines ....and god it looks amazing ..... and can be scaled from narrow to wide body airliners. Pratt .... you better keep a eye on the British! LOL.
 
Ϲhristopher said:
These are pretty nice, but I think it says more about the age of the aircraft used by South Africa’s domestic airlines.
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Those are brand new aircraft! Most budget airlines use clapped out B737s...

You can see the engines are modern high-bypass jets. The fan diameter is almost as wide as the fuselage!

I see the E195 is also type-rated for the flight to St Helena, which shows a high degree of confidence, and good for fleet consistency.
 
HAL 9000 said:
Around 2014-2016 or thereabouts, I flew quite a lot on Airlink - specifically from ORTIA to Kruger Mpumalanga Airport & back again - trips varied between using flights on their Embaer ERJ-135 & ERJ-140 aircraft, as well as on their Avro RJ85 / RJ100 aircraft.

View attachment 1951491

View attachment 1951492
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Here are the take-off & landing videos of one of my Airlink SA flights on a BAe RJ100, from FAOR to FAKN on 16 November 2014 - bright & sunny on departure - raining & misty upon arrival... ;)

Take-off video

Landing video
 
Gordon_R said:
Those are brand new aircraft! Most budget airlines use clapped out B737s...

You can see the engines are modern high-bypass jets. The fan diameter is almost as wide as the fuselage!

I see the E195 is also type-rated for the flight to St Helena, which shows a high degree of confidence, and good for fleet consistency.
Click to expand...
The 737 Max and A320neo are steadily taking over globally, locally FlySafair is expecting their first Max 8 in 2028. On the other hand Lift is still flying an A320 from the 1980s.

I remember my first flight on an A320neo, from a passenger point of view the difference was startling.
 
Ϲhristopher said:
The 737 Max and A320neo are steadily taking over globally, locally FlySafair is expecting their first Max 8 in 2028. On the other hand Lift is still flying an A320 from the 1980s.

I remember my first flight on an A320neo, from a passenger point of view the difference was startling.
Click to expand...

I think engine efficiency is the primary deciding factor nowadays, with recent oil price hikes having a huge impact on aviation fuel prices. Passenger comfort is a by-product of the upgrade process.
 
On a complete side note; the old publishers of PCFormat also produce the inflight magazine for Airlink; SkyWays. And the advert sales lady for that magazine was such a lovely woman who always blew past her targets. Excellent sales person. Sadly I heard she passed away a few years ago.
A few years after I left that publishing house I ended up taking an Airlink flight and it was nice to finally fly on that airline and read the SkyWays magazine as a passenger.
 
Gordon_R said:
I think engine efficiency is the primary deciding factor nowadays, with recent oil price hikes having a huge impact on aviation fuel prices. Passenger comfort is a by-product of the upgrade process.
Click to expand...
Indeed. And when you take the 737 Max and A320Neo, the engine choices are CFM Leap or the P&W PW1000. Both took different approaches. Pratt went for the geared design. Using the gear so that the core can spin fast at its optimal speed, and the fan in front, slower at its optimum speed with high bypass ratio.

CFM went with very high tech materials for its core, so it spins and runs very hot. Other improvements of course but two many to mention.

Also, for airlines, when they choose a airliner, they consider their route and flight frequency that they want to do. Airlink went for the E2 jet I believe because they are doing routes that are thin region routes (so they can fill the smaller plane better) and then they also do busy routes like JHB - CT, but they can have high frequency giving customers potentially more options on what time of day they want to fly.
 
I’m on the E2 again today. The business class configuration is interesting as its a 2-2 staggered layout. It’s not bad but they’re not as wide as the old gen business. The aircraft is still awesome though.
 
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