AQZ – Alliance Aviation Services
In June 2019, AQZ announced the acquisition of five Fokker F100s from Swiss airline Helvetic Airways, as well as its inventory of spare engines, parts and tools. The deal builds on AQZ’s purchase of 21 Fokker aircraft from Austrian Airlines in 2015, and by the end of this calendar year AQZ expect to have 44 planes operating in total. This purchase positions AQZ as the largest supplier, behind Fokker, of engines and spare parts in a market of growing customer demand.
There have been a couple of F100 crashes, most recently in Kazakhstan. Weather at the time had the temp at -12C, well below the dew point with high probability of clear ice forming. A Palair F100 crashed on takeoff in 1993. Dutch investigators attributed the cause due to ice formation on the wings. A crash at La Guardia was similarly attributed to wing ice.
After the loss of an F100 operated by an Air France subsidiary, the European Aviation Safety Agency mandated the fitting of on-ground wing leading-edge heating systems. EASA noted:
Without being too ghoulish, at least flying to NW WA, ice would be less of an issue.
