Rekkof Aircraft

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rekkof Aircraft is a Dutch company dedicated to restarting the production of upgraded versions of the Fokker F70 and Fokker F100 regional jets as production of those stopped when Fokker was declared bankrupt in 1996. They first announced their plans in late 2003 and intended to first re-launch the Fokker F70NG (NG standing for Next Generation) and if enough orders were placed later also the Fokker F100NG. Notable changes on the NG models would've been winglets and different engines. A possible third unnamed stretched version of the aircraft had also been mentioned.

Rekkof believes there is a sufficient market for the aircraft and that the design can still compete with similar modern regional airliners from manufacturers as Embraer and Bombardier Aerospace. However, while the announcement of a launch customer and the production re-start have been called "imminent" by Rekkof a number of times between early 2004 and mid-2005, none of Rekkof's plans have materialised to date. KLM, a current user of Fokker aircraft and suggested as a launch customer, has denied that they are in negotiations with Rekkof and has Embraer regional jets on order to replace their Fokker fleet.

Though Rekkof has stated that it prefers to assemble the aircraft in the Netherlands, with Lelystad Airport and Enschede Airport Twente mentioned as possible assembly locations, Bangalore in India has now also been mentioned as a possible location with Indian engineering firm Cades Digitech having stated they were planning to invest 300 million US dollars in an assembly plant.^[1]

In a recently released render, a new design called the Fokker F100NXT is shown, with the most notable difference being a redesigned wing, lacking the winglets proposed for the Fokker F100NG.

Rekkof Aircraft is a part of Panta Holdings BV, which also owns Denim Air, an airline using Fokker 50 aircraft. They previously owned VLM Airlines, also operating Fokker F50 aircraft, which has been sold to Air France-KLM.