China's - Orient Aviation

COMMUTER AVIATIONDurable Twin Ottermaking a comebackMalaysia Airlines will be among the buyersBy Charles AndersonThe DHC Twin Otter, for yearsthe mainstay of aviation in lessaccessible areas of the Asia-Pacific, is likely to return innumbers in an updated formnow production of the famous turboprop hasrestarted in Canada.Viking Air of Victoria, which boughtthe rights to it and six other De Havillandaircraft from Bombardier in 2005, hopesa good chunk of the 200-plus Twin OtterSeries 400s it plans to produce in the next10 years will find homes in the countries thatonce relied on the tough 19-seater to growtheir commuter routes.Malaysia Airlines has said it plans tobuy an unspecified number to replace thefive Twin Otters currently in service withits MAS Wings subsidiary in the west of thecountry. Indonesia, where Merpati Nusantarabegan building its business with Twin Otters40 years ago, is another key target. Merpatistill flies eight of them.Currently, Viking has 50 orders onits books, with first deliveries due in 18months and production slots reserved until2011. Assembly in the region is a long-termpossibility if demand holds up.Among the launch customers with fivefirm orders is Trans Maldivian Airways,which already operates 16 Twin Otteramphibians throughout low-lying atollresorts in the Indian Ocean. Its competitor,Maldivian Air Taxi, flies another 18 to22 depending on the season, making theMaldives the largest Twin Otter centre inthe world.Viking Air announced it was startingproduction last April, almost 19 years afterthe last of the current Twin Otters went intoservice. By that time Boeing had bought outthe De Havilland company, which it later soldto Bombardier.Viking spent 20 years manufacturingspare parts for the DHC line before movingOne of the five Twin Otters in the Malaysia Airlines fleetinto that area on its own account.“It took us more than a year to negotiatewith Bombardier to buy the type designrights. But we didn’t get into the businesswith the pure reason to go back intoproduction,” said Viking Air president andchief executive, David Curtis.The company was first prompted inthat direction by individual customerswho asked why it didn’t build new aircraftonce it had acquired the rights. Viking thencommissioned a comprehensive marketsurvey that pegged the Twin Otter as theone member of the old De Havilland family– including the single Otter and the Dash7 – still in sufficient demand to justify theinvestment.“The results came back unbelievablystrong,” said Curtis. “It’s still a nichemarket, but the indications were that from areplacement and retirement point of view we‘It’s still a niche market,but the indications were wecould expect to sell about 440aircraft over a 10-year period.’David CurtisPresident & chief executiveViking Aircould expect to sell about 440 aircraft over a10-year period.”An operators’ conference last yearattracted 120 delegates from 60 countries.“That was another real indication of interest.But we said, OK, if we are going to do it, weare going to need a certain number of orders;firm commitments, not Letters of Intent orhandshake deals,” he said.Wit h t hose secu red, i nvest mentpledged by Viking’s majority shareholder,Westerkirk Capital, and prospects lookinggood for financial help with research anddevelopment from a Canadian governmentfund, the company decided to go ahead.Curtis, however, thought a programme builtaround 200 sales was a safer bet.“There’s enough opportunities worldwidefrom tourism and in countries like Indonesia,where we are getting lots of inquiries. We arecomfortable with it,” he said.The keys to the Twin Otter’s resurgenceare the keenness among current operatorsto replace ageing aircraft, a lack of newersecond hand models on the market andrestrictions in countries like Indonesia onthe import of older aircraft for safety reasons.Plus the fact that no one is making an aircraftquite like it.“Our market study indicated that62 ORIENT AVIATION NOVEMBER 2007