Odyssey from London City to New York non-stop?

Bombardier’s all new C series narrow-bodied regional jet has been reported previously by AERBT to have a London City to New York non-stop capability, with just 40 Business Class passengers.  Now a British venture, provisionally called Odyssey Airlines, has taken the idea at face value and ordered the aircraft.  Odyssey is thought to be the mystery European customer for 10 of the Canadian-built jet.

The start-up directly targets British Airways twice daily “Club World” flights via Shannon operating 32-seat Airbus A318 aircraft, thought to be a marginal service financially, but viewed as a well worthwhile prestige operation.  Doha, Moscow and Tel Aviv are also within the C series aircraft’s capability, but not with the much heavier Airbus jet.

With the first flight due later this year the C series is seen as a competitor to both the Airbus A320neo, and Boeing 737max, but at the lower end of the market with a maximum 150-passenger capability.  Deliveries are due to start in 2013 with Lufthansa and Korean Air as lead customers.

Counting against the project is the failure in recent years of stand-alone ‘Business Class only’ operators on virtually the same route – Eos, Maxjet and Silverjet. www.bombardier.com

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