Australia To Increase Use Of Small Narrowbody Jets Among Airlines In 2025

Arrival of the first of Virgin Australia’s Embraer E190 E2s in the second half of 2025 will be the latest infusion of small narrowbody jets into the country.

The August 2024 announcement of Virgin Australia’s order for eight E190 E2s adds to the increasing numbers of the class in-country. Qantas is taking delivery of 29 Airbus A220-300s, while the largest operator of small narrowbodies by far is Alliance Airlines, which is building up a fleet of E190s that will eventually exceed 60.

Virgin Australia is taking the E190s as part of its fleet renewal plan. The order will see the E190-E2 replace the company’s three long-serving Fokker 100s, as well as complementing its larger Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s.

The new E190 E2s will be based in Perth, operated by Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (VARA), and will be “the first new aircraft in the Western Australia (WA) charter market this century,” Virgin Australia Group CEO Jayne Hrdlicka said when announcing the purchase.

“When the E190-E2 joins the fleet from late next year it will predominantly operate charter flights for VARA, bolstering its position as a leading operator in the WA charter market.”

Alliance, meanwhile, is rapidly building its fleet of E190s, which are supplementing the company’s fleet of Fokker 70 and 100s and now outnumber the older Dutch type. The company’s current plans are to reach a 100-strong fleet, comprising 37 Fokker 70/100s and 63 E190s.

The additional aircraft will be operating high-utilization contracted wet-lease services under a long-term contract. Charter activity will increase as more capacity becomes available.

Alliance says that its acquisition of more than 30 E190s from lessors Azorra and AerCap will provide additional capacity for growth well into 2026. The company has said that its strategy has always been to have excess capacity available, to be able to respond to changing customer needs.

It is also using some airframes for disassembly, to create its own large spares pool.

At QantasLink, meanwhile, numbers of A220-300s are slowly building, with five expected to be in service by the end of 2024 and a further two in the first half of 2025, with the full fleet of 29 scheduled to be in place by the end of 2027. Their predecessors at QantasLink, nine Boeing 717s, have now left the fleet.

The disparity between the number of 717s and incoming A220s is being filled by leased-in aircraft and others from the Qantas fleet and regional partners until more of the Canadian-built new-generation aircraft arrive.

While the A220s are currently being used on domestic routes – the aircraft, with almost twice the range of the 717s, can connect any two points in the huge country – they are starting to be rolled out on international services, with Darwin-Singapore being the first such route.