It’s not the most powerful or glamorous jet at Perth Airport – that honour lies with Emirates’ and Singapore Airline’s 777s – but a real workhorse and the wings behind Western Australia’s V8 economy taking thousands of resource industry personnel to work
It’s not the most powerful or glamorous jet at Perth Airport – that honour lies with Emirates’ and Singapore Airline’s 777s – but a real workhorse and the wings behind Western Australia’s V8 economy taking thousands of resource industry personnel to work every day.
The four-engine British Aerospace BAe146 was born in another era, to haul passengers in and out of noise-sensitive European cities.
But it has found its real home in WA’s dry and utterly unforgiving north-west with its searing heat and rugged mountain ranges, where reliability is absolutely critical.
Operated by National Jet Systems (NJS), the BAe146 now boasts reliability levels that only a brash aircraft salesman would dare to promise.
And that reliability is critical for NJS, which launches its first wave of flights at 5.30am.
At about 9.40am the BAe146s – almost in squadron formation – are arriving back at Perth Airport from a host of destinations in an operation repeated like clockwork throughout the day.
Ansett introduced the BAe146 to Australia in the 1970s, but early on the aircraft had a chequered career with various reliability issues.
But NJS, which launched BAe146 operations in 1990, embarked on an aggressive maintenance program.
Championing the type is NJS’s Perth-based general manager, business development, Hugh Davin, who enthusiastically proclaims it the DC-3 of the jet age.
“Its performance is superb and on one contract the BAe146 completed 588 flights with only three delays of more than 15 minutes,” Mr Davin said.
He said the aircraft’s engineering and engine problems were washed out long ago, and the reliability was among the nation’s best.
Between April 2001 and 2003, NJS was able to lift the aircraft’s reliability rate from 95 per cent to 99.2 per cent.
Part of that effort was to make presentations to the aircraft’s component suppliers to improve reliability. NJS invited flight attendants to the presentations.
They described what it was like to deal with passengers boarding in Newman in the middle of summer with the auxillary power unit – which powers the air conditioning on the ground – unserviceable.
NJS also instituted what it termed a ‘preventative maintenance program’, where it replaced parts or conducted inspections well ahead of the manufacturers’ guidelines.
But the aircraft’s real ace is its performance into the airfields of the outback. Its four engines and high-wing configuration make it the perfect aircraft for short runways in blistering heat.
“The BAe 146-100 can carry 71 miners and their baggage and equipment on a 46 degree celsius day out of a 1,800-metre runway and fly 1,300 kilometres to Perth,” Mr Davin said.
“Many of the airfields at the resource sites are short and wedged between rugged iron ore ranges, making climb and engine-out performance critical.”
He also lauds the 146’s economics.
“Our costs are only slightly above the 36-seat Dash 8 and we can carry double the load,” he said.
This capability has enabled NJS to pick up the lion’s share of resource contracts where a sealed runway is involved.
NJS also operates flights to Cocos and Christmas Islands in the Indian Ocean under an Australian government contract won in 1998 from Ansett.
In 2004, the contract for a twice-weekly service was renewed for a further five years plus options.
NJS has been operating BAe146s in QantasLink colours since 1991 but these have been phased out in favour of Boeing 717s, also operated by NJS.
Currently, NJS has eight BAe146s seating from 71 to 98 passengers, depending upon the model.
So rugged is the BAe146 that the aircraft’s manufacturer, British Aerospace, has just announced a life extension program that will keep the jet in the air for a further 20 years.
The largest user of the BAe146 is Lufthansa, which added a further 11 to its fleet this year for a total of 37 aircraft.
