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Saab 2000 launch customer is Switzerland's Crossair which presently operates the largest fleet of 340s (24) in the world in addition to orders and options against 50 of the model 2000. Entry into service will be late 1993 with the type allowing Crossair to commence a number of new hub bypass services presently too lengthy in flight time for the present generation of turboprops.
Update – Saab 2000
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SAAB 2000
In the last edition of this magazine we examined the first of a new generation of civil airliners.
That aircraft was the Canadair Regional Jet, a 50 seat derivative of the successful Challenger corporate jet. Since the RJ, and the new generation of high speed 50 sealers that it represented, was initially mooted last year two additional entrants to this new class have entered the marketplace. One is from Embraer with a variant of the Brasilia and the other is from rival Saab with a significantly more powerful, stretched version of the hot selling 340. Designated Saab 2000, this aircraft is the subject of this Update.
Genesis of the 2000 was essentially Saab’s largest and most loyal customer, Crossair, consistently calling for a larger 340. Switzerland’s Crossair was the launch customer for the original baseline model 340 and proudly stood by the type through its initially trouble plagued entry into service (due to early problems with the GE engines) to today having a total of 94 Saab 340/2000s on order or under option. While Crossair required a larger turboprop in the 50 seat class (Swiss regulations do not allow any resident non-Swissair-owned operator to fly jets) the rapidly growing regional also shared the Saab viewpoint that it was senseless for the Swedish company to build what essentially was just a clone of the existing Fokker 50, ATR42 or Dash 8-300. With airport and airways congestion becoming more critical with each passing year it therefore seemed obvious to pursue the opportunity to also develop an all new aircraft type. That Canadair, DHC and Shorts were also thinking along parallel lines was only really a verification that the time had well and truly come for this new class of hub bypass airliner. Shorts of course were recently acquired by Bombardier, parent company of Canadair, which thus neatly ends the Shorts FJX 50 seat jet project much to the delight of Saab, DHC, Canadair itself and no doubt Embraer.
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