is it possible to have a more premium cabin for Fall/Winter (2-1 Biz class; 2-2 Prem Econ/Econ) and then change back to a more prem economy/economy setup (2-2) for Spring/Summer?

Curious to know how modular the configuration can be and how much downtime it requires..

Can it be done yes. the seats can be moved in increments of an inch. It would take two or three days do all the work. It's easy to re-pitch the seats but the more difficult/ tedious work would be replacing all the seat track covers with longer ones, re-pitching the psu's and moving all the seat location placards. The seat track covers come in sticks that have to be cut to fit and notched if you need a length other than the standard cabin layouts. Its a PITA to do more that a few, even though they are nearly all the same length notching takes time and skill to make them look factory. Moving placards is easy, not destroying them or the tedlar if you want to reuse is difficult. plus after everything is in place you would have to do a weight and balance.

If you had a premade shipset of seat track covers to swap, and simply removed and replaced placards while repitching the seats and psu's it could be done pretty fast with 4 people going either way, but the question would be would the hundred or so man hours be worth it for the revenue every season change

Balance is probably not as big of an issue for the 170 than it is for a CRJ.

When we converted the 70Y configuration of a CRJ-700 to a 9F/56Y configuration, we had to temporarily add weight in the form of a concrete crash barricade attached to the forward jackpoint at the front of the a/c to keep it from tipping backwards and standing on the tail when the first 4 rows and the old galley configuration were removed to install the first class cabin and new galley.

With the cabin change the plane had to be reweighed and reindexed for weight and balance. Planes are normally reweighed every 36 months. doing a cabin change every season would mean you’d have to reweigh and reindex the plane twice a year.

Shouldn't be too bad, realistically a couple mechanics should be able to do in a shift once it's all set up.

Most airliners the seats and many other cabin parts are mounted on rails most of which have locking points in 1" intervals so not that hard to customize the cabin configuration for different missions.

First once or twice will require a few days of down time as there will be some testing to do, some parts to fabricate, some adjustments to make, and then a new weight and balance will need to be done. Once it's been done a few times though it should be easy enough to store the parts from the configs not in use in a crate somewhere for re-use next time and have a system in place to make sure operations/crews/etc. are using the correct version of the weight and balance.

Where I work some of our airplanes get re-configured several times per year and we don't re-weigh every time, because we re-weighed it the first time we did that particular config and have the engineering drawings of exactly what goes where so subsequent re-configs just do it as per the drawing and it will weigh the same as it did last time we did that particular flavour. The aircraft do still get weighed every few years on the normal schedule and the config at time of weighing is accounted for in the calculations.

battlegroup62 wrote:

Can it be done yes. the seats can be moved in increments of an inch. It would take two or three days do all the work. It's easy to re-pitch the seats but the more difficult/ tedious work would be replacing all the seat track covers with longer ones, re-pitching the psu's and moving all the seat location placards. The seat track covers come in sticks that have to be cut to fit and notched if you need a length other than the standard cabin layouts. Its a PITA to do more that a few, even though they are nearly all the same length notching takes time and skill to make them look factory. Moving placards is easy, not destroying them or the tedlar if you want to reuse is difficult. plus after everything is in place you would have to do a weight and balance.

If you had a premade shipset of seat track covers to swap, and simply removed and replaced placards while repitching the seats and psu's it could be done pretty fast with 4 people going either way, but the question would be would the hundred or so man hours be worth it for the revenue every season change

wow, thank you! sounds like you've done it before

So you think if it was all pre-planned and FAA/TSB certified it could be flipped out in a couple days? (4ppl x 12hr/day)

In the scenario in question I think it would certainly get the ROI needed. Come winter time, it would be on flights up to 4hrs+ and a normal 2-2 config wouldn't cut it. But for summer the flights would be 2hr max. Summer is more the leisure traveller too, so budget-friendly. Winter would be to premium locations such as Sun Valley, Jakcson Hole, etc along with longer flight duration.

Woodreau wrote:

Balance is probably not as big of an issue for the 170 than it is for a CRJ.

When we converted the 70Y configuration of a CRJ-700 to a 9F/56Y configuration, we had to temporarily add weight in the form of a concrete crash barricade attached to the forward jackpoint at the front of the a/c to keep it from tipping backwards and standing on the tail when the first 4 rows and the old galley configuration were removed to install the first class cabin and new galley.

With the cabin change the plane had to be reweighed and reindexed for weight and balance. Planes are normally reweighed every 36 months. doing a cabin change every season would mean you’d have to reweigh and reindex the plane twice a year.

how long does the reweigh/reindex take?

CanadianNorth wrote:

Shouldn't be too bad, realistically a couple mechanics should be able to do in a shift once it's all set up.

Most airliners the seats and many other cabin parts are mounted on rails most of which have locking points in 1" intervals so not that hard to customize the cabin configuration for different missions.

First once or twice will require a few days of down time as there will be some testing to do, some parts to fabricate, some adjustments to make, and then a new weight and balance will need to be done. Once it's been done a few times though it should be easy enough to store the parts from the configs not in use in a crate somewhere for re-use next time and have a system in place to make sure operations/crews/etc. are using the correct version of the weight and balance.

Where I work some of our airplanes get re-configured several times per year and we don't re-weigh every time, because we re-weighed it the first time we did that particular config and have the engineering drawings of exactly what goes where so subsequent re-configs just do it as per the drawing and it will weigh the same as it did last time we did that particular flavour. The aircraft do still get weighed every few years on the normal schedule and the config at time of weighing is accounted for in the calculations.

Interesting. This is what I was hopeful it would be. This would all be FAA/TSB certified ahead of time so that the flip is as quick as possible. Im assuming agency certification CAN be done ahead of time?

bubbrubb wrote:

This would all be FAA/TSB certified ahead of time so that the flip is as quick as possible. Im assuming agency certification CAN be done ahead of time?

We operate C registered aircraft so not sure about the FAA/TSB end. In the case of TC it's as above get it all formally approved on the first round which will take some time but then after that's all good to go you can basically do it whenever you want as long as it's done as per the approved instructions and recorded/signed off as per the company's approved paperwork systems.

bubbrubb wrote:

battlegroup62 wrote:

Can it be done yes. the seats can be moved in increments of an inch. It would take two or three days do all the work. It's easy to re-pitch the seats but the more difficult/ tedious work would be replacing all the seat track covers with longer ones, re-pitching the psu's and moving all the seat location placards. The seat track covers come in sticks that have to be cut to fit and notched if you need a length other than the standard cabin layouts. Its a PITA to do more that a few, even though they are nearly all the same length notching takes time and skill to make them look factory. Moving placards is easy, not destroying them or the tedlar if you want to reuse is difficult. plus after everything is in place you would have to do a weight and balance.

If you had a premade shipset of seat track covers to swap, and simply removed and replaced placards while repitching the seats and psu's it could be done pretty fast with 4 people going either way, but the question would be would the hundred or so man hours be worth it for the revenue every season change

wow, thank you! sounds like you've done it before

So you think if it was all pre-planned and FAA/TSB certified it could be flipped out in a couple days? (4ppl x 12hr/day)

In the scenario in question I think it would certainly get the ROI needed. Come winter time, it would be on flights up to 4hrs+ and a normal 2-2 config wouldn't cut it. But for summer the flights would be 2hr max. Summer is more the leisure traveller too, so budget-friendly. Winter would be to premium locations such as Sun Valley, Jakcson Hole, etc along with longer flight duration.

As others have said the first few times would be the longest and would require a reweigh on each aircraft tail# in each config, but once you have both reweighs and a shipset of parts it could probably be done in under 24 hours with a crew of 4. The reweigh would take a few extra people if done on jacks, but is way easier that using roll on scales since no strut calculation is needed, you just input numbers into the calculator and have you new W&B. The same would go for the certification, the first one would take the longest due to paperwork approval, but once certified you would be able to do it to any tail as a mod.

great info, thanks guys/gals!

this begs another question..

What are the mainenance patterns for a 20y old E170? How many hours/days/weeks in a year would it need to be in a hangar getting checks done on average? If during the summer season there is no overnight routes, can this be done overnight and ready for first flight in morning?

Newbie questions I know...

Also too, what about overhead bins? I'd assume they may need to be reconfigured also to mimc the new seating contours?

bubbrubb wrote:

this begs another question..

What are the mainenance patterns for a 20y old E170? How many hours/days/weeks in a year would it need to be in a hangar getting checks done on average? If during the summer season there is no overnight routes, can this be done overnight and ready for first flight in morning?

Newbie questions I know...

It all depends on usage. In the US regional market they will go for a heavy maintenance visit about every 2 years/ 4-6000 cycles. It takes around 5-6000 manhours to complete and return to service. The rest can be done on overnights with proper planning.

The bins could be swapped out if you plan on having no or smaller first class they attach the same whether they are the first class or economy size. You also would have to get new ceiling panels for any bin location that changes.

battlegroup62 wrote:

bubbrubb wrote:

this begs another question..

What are the mainenance patterns for a 20y old E170? How many hours/days/weeks in a year would it need to be in a hangar getting checks done on average? If during the summer season there is no overnight routes, can this be done overnight and ready for first flight in morning?

Newbie questions I know...

It all depends on usage. In the US regional market they will go for a heavy maintenance visit about every 2 years/ 4-6000 cycles. It takes around 5-6000 manhours to complete and return to service. The rest can be done on overnights with proper planning.

The bins could be swapped out if you plan on having no or smaller first class they attach the same whether they are the first class or economy size. You also would have to get new ceiling panels for any bin location that changes.

thanks BG

bubbrubb wrote:

Also too, what about overhead bins? I'd assume they may need to be reconfigured also to mimc the new seating contours?

The bins would likely not get reconfiged. The PSU panels on the undersides of the bins might nave to get moved around, but the bins would remain as they are as long as the 'monuments' ie galleys and lavs don't move positions. If those move you are looking at a weeks long retro fit.

I worked on the DL 757 interior mods when we upgraded to the pivot style bins that are currently installed. It took us about a month to do the mod while the plane was in for a regular C Check. That mod included all new galleys, lavs, bins and seats. I was the bin specialist. All of the mounts had to be moved for every bin section to a location higher up on the airframe structure. Lots of drilling in tight spaces, all of it overhead. Week after week of that job kills your neck. When the yearly shift bid came up I bid an entire different shift in another area just to get away from that mod.

If a E170 has a range of 2150nm with MTOW, how much distance can be regained by reducing the weight by 9,000lbs?

Would seat ~70 at full cap, but this scenario would be a long range flight for an e170 so only 35tix sold so that everyone has empty seat next to them.

35pax x 100kg (220lbs)+(35pax x 35lb luggage)

Curious?

How about instead, just operate like Intra-Europe Premium Cabins, blocking the side seats?

rt23456p wrote:

How about instead, just operate like Intra-Europe Premium Cabins, blocking the side seats?

In the US? The airlines that operate these aircraft tend to 1) be constrained by scope and 2) mostly offer real premium cabins.