Fokker F-100

Twin Jet

The Fokker 100 was the Dutch manufacturer's final commercial success before its 1996 bankruptcy, a stretched twin-jet regional airliner that bridged the gap between turboprops and larger narrowbodies in the late 1980s. Seating 97 to 122 passengers, the F100 combined the fuselage of its predecessor, the Fokker F28 Fellowship, with modern Rolls-Royce Tay turbofans and a glass cockpit, creating an aircraft optimized for thin routes and secondary airports where its short-field performance and relatively quiet engines made it a favorite among regional carriers. Between 1986 and 1997, Fokker delivered 283 F100s to operators worldwide, with the type proving particularly popular in Australia, where it became the backbone of regional trunk routes. The F100's operating envelope reflects its regional mission: a maximum cruise speed of Mach 0.77 at 35,000 feet, a range of roughly 1,300 nautical miles with full payload, and approach speeds around 132 knots that allowed it to serve airports with shorter runways than competing Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 variants. Its twin Tay engines delivered 13,850 pounds of thrust each, giving the aircraft brisk climb performance even on hot days at high-altitude airports. The type's relatively low maximum takeoff weight of 95,000 pounds kept it firmly in ICAO's Medium wake turbulence category, making it an efficient choice for frequency-building on routes too thin for larger jets. Though Fokker ceased production in 1997 and the company dissolved shortly after, the F100 has proven remarkably durable in service. Many airframes remain active more than three decades after delivery, particularly in Australia where Alliance Airlines operates one of the world's largest remaining fleets on fly-in-fly-out mining charters and regional scheduled services. The type's reputation for reliability, low operating costs on short sectors, and ability to operate from austere airfields has kept it economically viable even as newer regional jets have entered service. SkyMeter has tracked 325 flights across 37 airframes and 6 operators, with ALLIANCE AIRLINES PTY LIMITED the largest observed operator.