Fokker 100

When Fokker began planning a successor to the F28 Fellowship in the early 1980s, it did not start from a blank sheet. The Dutch manufacturer held an exposed position in a market dominated by Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, and the sensible route was to squeeze the design it already knew and already had customers for. The answer was the F28 Mark 0100, marketed as the Fokker 100: a Fellowship Mark 4000 re-engined, stretched and modernised until little but the silhouette remained the same.

A type certificate was applied for on 25 March 1983 and the programme was announced that same year. Fokker built two prototypes. The first, registered PH-MKH, flew on 30 November 1986; the second, PH-MKC, followed on 25 February 1987. Where the F28 seated 85 in its largest versions, the new aircraft aimed at the hundred-seat segment, then poorly served: too large for regional turboprops, too small for the single-aisle twinjets of the competition.

The most visible change was the fuselage stretch of 5,74 m (18,83 ft), enough to grow from 85 to a maximum of 109 passengers. The most consequential changes were at the extremities. The F28's Rolls-Royce Speys gave way to two high-bypass Rolls-Royce RB.183 Tay turbofans, far quieter and appreciably thriftier, mounted in the same rear position under the same T-tail the Fellowship shared conceptually with the Douglas DC-9 family.

The wing was widened by 3,0 m and received new flaps and larger ailerons, with extended leading and trailing edges that improved aerodynamics and increased chord. Fokker claimed the resulting wing was 30 % more efficient in cruise than the F28's, achieved while retaining the simplicity of a fixed leading edge with no movable high-lift devices up front to maintain. The horizontal stabiliser was widened by 1,4 m and the landing gear was strengthened with new wheels and brakes to absorb the higher maximum weights. Fuel capacity, maximum speed and ceiling, by contrast, stayed at Fellowship values.

The flight deck was the other generational leap. The Fokker 100 introduced a glass cockpit with a Rockwell Collins DU-1000 electronic flight instrument system, a flight management system, an autopilot and flight director with CAT III autoland capability, a thrust management system and full ARINC avionics — equipment befitting a much larger aircraft, and one of the type's selling points. One external detail tells the Mark 0100 apart at a glance: the Fokker 100 does without the auxiliary overhead windows the F28 carried above the cockpit windshields.

The variant was approved on 20 November 1987 and the first deliveries began in February 1988, with Swissair as launch customer. Those early aircraft were powered by the Tay Mk 620-15, rated at 13.850 lbf of unit thrust. Operators demanding better short-field or hot-and-high performance later took the Tay Mk 650-15 version, at 15.100 lbf, which also raised maximum take-off weight and range at maximum payload.

Commercial reception was quick. American Airlines ordered 75 aircraft, TAM Transportes Aéreos Regionais 50 and USAir 40, all three with the more powerful engine. American's order, placed in March 1989 and valued at some 3,1 billion dollars, was not only the largest ever received by Fokker: it was the largest order ever won by a Dutch company to that point. By 1991 the factory had produced 70 aircraft and held more than 230 orders, and in August of that year the type joined the American Airlines fleet.

Several branches grew from the basic airframe. An extended-range version with additional centre-fuselage fuel tanks arrived in 1993, followed in 1994 by a quick-change passenger/freighter version designated Fokker 100QC. That same 1993 brought the most important derivative: the Fokker 70, obtained by removing 4,70 m of fuselage and reducing seating to around 80, intended as a direct replacement for the ageing F28 and first flown in April 1993. The two share extensive systems commonality and a single pilot type rating, letting an airline run both capacities with one technical workforce.

In the opposite direction, Fokker studied a stretch to roughly 130 seats, the Fokker 130, which was never built. The second-hand market produced further lives: in 2003 Fokker Services launched the Fokker 100EJ (Executive Jet), remanufactured from used airliners and priced around 12 million dollars, with three luxury layouts seating between 19 and 31 passengers — two of them with a shower-equipped master suite — and an auxiliary fuel system extending range by roughly 1.600 km. By late 2009 six Fokker 100s were in VIP service and two more in a 50-seat corporate layout. Third parties such as Phoenix Aero Solutions have also offered freighter conversion programmes.

A sound product did not save the company. Through the first half of the 1990s Fokker and DASA explored a commercial relationship in regional aircraft, and in 1993 the German group bought 40 % of the Dutch manufacturer. By 1995 both were in financial trouble and DASA chose to leave the regional aircraft market; in June 1996 it sold most of Dornier to Fairchild Aircraft, creating Fairchild Dornier. Fokker, carrying accumulated losses from several years despite the 100's success, collapsed in March 1996. Production stopped in early 1997, after 283 deliveries plus the two prototypes.

A partial or full sale to Bombardier was also explored, but the talks produced no deal. The type's maintenance business ended up with the Dutch firm Stork B.V., which took the name Fokker Aviation and continued to support operators. The competitive pressure that finished the programme came from below: successive stretches of the Bombardier and Embraer regional jets squeezed the Fokker 70/100 out of its niche, the same dynamic that killed the Fairchild Dornier 728 family.

In 1999 an Amsterdam-based group called Rekkof Restart — «Rekkof» being «Fokker» backwards — announced negotiations to reopen both the Fokker 70 and Fokker 100 lines. During the 2000s the Netherlands Aircraft Company, also known as NG Aircraft, was formed for the same purpose, amid delays and false starts. In March 2010 it stated it had secured funding from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs to adapt an existing Fokker 100 as the prototype for an improved new-build series, and that same month announced an interest in converting used aircraft to the new standard. In March 2011 a partnership with the government of Brazil was announced for the type's revival.

In July 2014 NG Aircraft chief executive Maarten Van Eeghen set out the F120NG project: a new-build aircraft seating 125 to 130 passengers, essentially a stretched Fokker 100, powered by Pratt & Whitney PurePower PW1X17G engines rated at 17.600 lbf which the company claimed would halve fuel burn per seat against the original. The earliest entry-into-service date then contemplated was 2019, after a five-year development. None of these projects materialised.

Retirements began early among the largest operators. In 2000, answering the arrival of Legend Airlines, American reconfigured five Fokker 100s into a 56-seat all-business layout to work around Wright Amendment restrictions out of Dallas Love Field, later adding a sixth; after the attacks of 11 September 2001 the service was cancelled and those aircraft were grounded. In late 2002 the airline decided to retire its entire 74-aircraft fleet early on operating-cost grounds, replacing them from 2004 with smaller regional jets flown by American Eagle. The late-decade recession accelerated matters: in March 2009 Mexicana announced the lease of 25 Boeing 717s to replace its 25 Fokker 100s, and that September Mandarin Airlines withdrew the last of the type in East Asia. Many airframes were broken up; others returned to service with new owners.

The type's refuge was the southern hemisphere. In August 2019 some 126 aircraft were still in airline use, many of them in Australia with Alliance Airlines and QantasLink supporting the mining industry, at utilisation rates low for an airline — around 1.200 hours a year — but demanding in cycles. In August 2009 Australia's Skywest Airlines had fitted its Fokker 70 and 100 fleet with a new satellite navigation system allowing shorter approaches at night and in poor weather, saving time and fuel and widening the list of usable airports. In June 2015 Austrian Airlines, one of the largest European operators, approved replacing its Fokker 70s and 100s — with an average fleet age of 21 years — with second-hand Embraer 195s; that November Alliance Airlines bought the entire Austrian fleet of fifteen Fokker 100s and six Fokker 70s.

The aircraft also found uses its maker had not foreseen. Since 2015 the French Direction générale de l'armement has flown Fokker 100s as testbeds, the ABE-NG (Avion Banc-d'Essais de Nouvelle Génération), replacing the Dassault Falcon 20: the first, formerly with the airline Régional, was fitted with the Rafale's nose section, the Thales RBE2 active electronically scanned array radar, optronics, the Reco NG reconnaissance pod under the fuselage and MBDA MICA air-to-air missiles, with four more to follow. Several governments have also operated the type as official transport.

The type's record includes several fatal accidents, two of them closely tied to wing contamination by ice. On 5 March 1993 Palair Macedonian Airlines Flight 301 crashed shortly after take-off from Skopje bound for Zurich, killing 83 of the 97 on board. On 31 October 1996 TAM Transportes Aéreos Regionais Flight 402 came down after take-off from São Paulo-Congonhas, killing 99 people — everyone on board and four on the ground. On 9 July 1997, aboard TAM Flight 283, a bomb exploded in the rear cabin, opening a hole of 2 by 1,5 m and causing a decompression that blew one passenger out of the aircraft; the crew landed safely in São Paulo.

In the new century, on 23 May 2001 the starboard main gear of American Airlines Flight 1107, registration N1419D, collapsed on landing at Dallas/Fort Worth because of a manufacturing flaw: none of the 88 passengers and 4 crew were seriously hurt, but the aircraft was written off. On 15 September 2001 TAM Flight 9755 suffered an uncontained engine failure that shattered three cabin windows and cost a passenger's life. On 25 January 2007 Air France Flight 7775 crashed on take-off from Pau: all 54 occupants escaped, one person on the ground died, and the BEA investigation attributed the accident to ice on the wings. On 25 December 2012 Air Bagan Flight 11 touched down short of the runway at Heho, killing two, and on 27 December 2019 Bek Air Flight 2100 lost height after take-off from Almaty and struck a building, killing 12 of the 98 on board; here too the cause was a stall from ice accumulation. Kazakhstan suspended Fokker 100 operations in its airspace indefinitely and, on 17 April 2020, the Kazakh aviation authority revoked the airline's operator certificate and the airworthiness certificates of its remaining aircraft. Of an entirely different nature was the Brussels Airport diamond heist of 18 February 2013, in which eight armed men took roughly 50 million dollars in stones and cash being loaded aboard a Helvetic Airways Fokker 100.

The Fokker 100 is 35,53 m long, spans 28,08 m over a wing area of 93,5 m², and stands 8,50 m high. The fuselage is 3,30 m wide and the cabin 3,10 m, with 2,01 m of internal height. The flight crew is two, and typical layouts run from 97 seats in two classes to a maximum of 122, at seat pitches from 29 inches to 36 inches in first class. According to the manufacturer, most aircraft were configured with 100 seats at a generous 34-inch pitch, while certification allows up to 109 passengers at 32 inches.

Empty weight is 24.375 kg in the lower-weight version and 24.541 kg in the higher, with maximum take-off weights of 43.090 and 45.810 kg respectively and maximum payloads of 11.242 and 11.993 kg. Fuel capacity is 13.365 litres. Maximum cruise speed is 845 km/h, or Mach 0,77, and service ceiling 35.000 ft. At maximum payload, range runs from 1.323 nmi with Tay 620-15 engines to 1.710 nmi with the 650-15s; take-off run at maximum weight is 4.988 and 5.319 ft respectively.

The structure was designed for 90.000 landings, a high figure that explains much of the type's longevity in short-cycle operations such as the Australian ones. Airframe maintenance is built around heavy checks every 5.000 flight hours, with most major components other than gear and powerplant maintained on condition. Fokker Services — today Fokker Services Group, with its main warehouse at Amsterdam Schiphol and further centres at Singapore Seletar and La Grange near Atlanta — has sustained the fleet with rotable exchange and lease programmes, digital documentation and approved modifications: RNP 0.3 navigation, ADS-B Out V2, LPV approaches and tablet-based electronic flight bags. Environmentally, the type declares unburnt hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide emissions substantially below ICAO CAEP/4 limits and certified noise levels more than 16 EPNdB below the Chapter 3 requirement of Annex 16.

Sources disagree on the programme's final tally: the Fokker Services Group information booklet puts production at 278 aircraft built up to 1996, while the usual count is 283 deliveries until the line closed in 1997, plus the two prototypes. On either count the Fokker 100 was the last airliner of a company with almost eight decades of history, and its disappearance left Europe without an independent manufacturer in the hundred-seat segment until the Embraer E-Jets and the Airbus A318. Several operators have said they intend to keep it flying beyond 2030, and Fokker Services estimated that airframes built in the 1990s could remain serviceable until 2035. Even so, the retirement advances: by May 2024 there were 66 aircraft in service worldwide and, in February 2026, QantasLink was withdrawing its own, with airframes such as VH-NHO already handed to museums like HARS at Parkes, New South Wales.