Lufthvaartnieuws.nl: Rekkof restart "very near"

Rekkof restart “very near”

Dutch only: http://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/news/?ID=6240

AMSTERDAM – Rekkof Aircraft is one order away from restarting Fokker planes. This is reported by the “Financieele Dagblad” (comparable to Financial Times, and usually quite reliable). The company gives the rebirth of the Dutch plane industry another 3 months. The company of Jaap Rosen Jacobson has spend years trying to restart Fokker.

The rebirth is now “very close”, the spokesperson of Rekkof told the FD. Airlines that are still flying the Fokkers have signed an LoI for the order of nearly 40 F100 or F70 planes. These LoI’s will be converted into firm orders when the decission is taken to make the planes.

There is sufficient finances according to the spokesperson. “The required starting capital of around 150 million euro (+/- 100 million pounds) has been awarded”. Along the financers are future suppliers and a few private people/companies. Also a few airlines that must remain nameless will provide funds for at least 50 planes.

According to the paper all hope has now been set on one airline that has been considering ever since August whether to order 10 planes or not. With this order the required minimum of 50 planes can be reached. Rekkof has stated that if they can not reach this goal within 3 months they will give up.

I could not get the original article from the Financieele Dagblad because their website is pay per view.

I hope that Fokker/Rekkof will pull through, but am still not convinced. It would be good though as competition is still limited. Of course Embraer has the E170/E190 families.

The other competing planes have been cancelled (Do-728/928) or are still firmly on the drawing board (C-series, RRJ). The A318 and 717 I do not really regard as competitors to the Fokkers as they are too heavy and long-legged.

We’ll see. At least it will all be over in 3 months!

P.S. Sorry for messing up the header which has the source wrongly spelled!