Summary Fokker spread too thin by pursuing two different aircraft programs simultaneously, ultimately leading to bankruptcy. Fokker's decision to release the Fokker 50 and Fokker 100 despite delays contributed to their failure in the market. Lower-than-anticipated sales of the Fokker 50 and Fokker 100 led to commercial losses, challenging the company's recovery.
While today the regional jet market is overwhelmingly dominated by Canadian manufacturer Bombardier and Brazilian planemaker Embraer, in the 1980s and 1990s, the industry was ripe with dozens of competitors. Some of the major designers of regional jets for decades have included Saab, British Aerospace, ATR, and many others, in addition to the duopoly that controls the market today. One company that had become a major player on the regional jet scene for years was Dutch manufacturer Fokker, which built commercial jets that entered service across the globe.
Today, however, no more planes are rolling off this once-massive manufacturer’s assembly lines, and the reasoning behind its collapse is fascinating to explore. From building aircraft families that sold over 1,000 jets to being a commercial failure that went out of business by the mid-2000s, several decisions made by the company’s executives led to its fall from grace. In this article, we will take a deeper look at what happened to Dutch manufacturer Fokker.
Background The Fokker company has an extensive history in commercial aviation, and its founder, Anthony Fokker, is still considered one of the industry’s most important pioneers, building the legendary Fokker Spin aircraft in the early 1900s. The company played a role in aircraft development throughout both wars and turned its eyes toward commercial space in the post-war period. Major programs Fokker's first major commercial aircraft series was the F27 Friendship, a turboprop first delivered in November 1958.
The turboprop was an ideal replacement for older Douglas DC-3 aircraft, offering improvements in many performance categories and matching the plane’s capacity targets. More importantly, the F27 Friendship is noteworthy for its popularity in the American market, a key demographic that successful Fokker programs would surely capture. Over 700 F27 Friendships were produced, enough to make the program profitable.
Some were even built in the United States under license. Get all the latest aviation news on Simple Flying! The next major program the company undertook was the F28 Fellowship, a jet aircraft with a capacity of roughly 60 that was first delivered by the manufacturer in 1969. Despite slightly more sluggish sales, with only around 250 F28s ever delivered, the program was still a commercial success, reaching break-even in the 1980s and maintaining profitability after.
Critical choices Following the success of the F27 and F28 programs, Fokker began to explore new aircraft designs that could help maintain its commercial positions within the regional market. The company had two mildly successful designs, one for a turboprop and the other for a jet. While most other manufacturers of the time decided it best to focus on one of the two designs, Fokker decided to pursue both at the same time, a critical decision that would ultimately harm the company.
The Fokker 50 was designed to replace the F27, offering various improvements, including new, quieter engines that would increase fuel efficiency by over 30%, according to Aerospace Technology . Composite materials were also introduced to reduce the aircraft’s weight, and increased automation in the cockpit would make the plane easier to fly. In the end, however, the aircraft would never achieve the success of its predecessor, with just over 200 built by the time production was halted in 1997.
There was no interest in license-built versions in the United States, and the extended Fokker 60 variant ultimately saw no commercial customers. The Fokker 100 , a jet-powered aircraft designed to replace the F28, looked promising when it hit the market. First delivered in 1988, the aircraft boasted increased automated flying techniques that allowed it to be used in various weather conditions.
American Airlines was the Fokker 100's biggest customer. In 1989, the program was also won when American Airlines ordered 75 jets, demonstrating the potential for expansion in the company’s most important target market. Nonetheless, the aircraft’s sales also cooled off quite considerably after that, with only 250 produced by the time production was ultimately halted in 1997, after facing bankruptcy for the second time in 1996.
While earlier, cheaper programs were able to turn a profit with just a couple hundred aircraft sold, the Fokker 50 and Fokker 100 families faced far higher break-even points of over 300 aircraft, according to Eriksson and Steinhuis’ 2016 book The Global Commercial Aviation Industry . As neither family was able to meet these targets, there were both commercial losses, ones from which the company would never recover, even with the support of the Dutch government. With both the Fokker 50 and the Fokker 100, the US market largely failed to be strongly interested in the newer Fokker offerings.
Without financial support from the world's largest and most important regional airlines (those in the US), the company simply struggled to fill its order books. So what went wrong? Industry analysts have analyzed Fokker’s collapse for decades, and most point to the manufacturer’s decision to pursue two different programs simultaneously as its downfall. The company had spread itself too thin, forcing it to narrowly skirt bankruptcy in 1987 amid severe financial difficulties bringing both aircraft families to market.
While a cash infusion from the Dutch government initially kept the ailing manufacturer afloat, the company still faced overwhelming operational costs and weak sales that would be challenging going forward. Fokker had greatly underestimated the costs of bringing the Fokker 50 and Fokker 100 to market, likely due to the changing demands of important customers. Furthermore, the company faced production delays with both families, leaving both the Fokker 50 and the Fokker 100 in a weaker position than market competitors.
The Fokker 50, which entered the market in 1987, lagged behind a few key competitors, such as the ATR 42, the Embraer 120, the Saab 340, and the de Havilland Dash-8. These jets entered service around 3-4 years before the Fokker 50, selling more than twice as much as the Dutch-built plane. In total, the only remaining Fokker 50 and Fokker 100 commercial operators exist mostly in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, with some exceptions such as: QantasLink Virgin Australia Skippers Aviation Fokker spread itself too thin by attempting to compete in two different markets simultaneously.
The company had underestimated how steep its learning curve, how high its costs would be, and how weak the market for its products would be by the time it entered service. At the end of the day, Fokker would have needed landslide support from US carriers, and, at the end of the day, it simply did not, leaving the company with aircraft it could not sell and hefty sunk costs..
