The History of Canadair Regional Jet MSN 7004

This is one in a series of articles on Winglets which track the histories of Canadair Regional Jets.

Canadair Regional Jet RJ200LR MSN 7004 C-GRJJ in service with Lufthansa Cityline (Photo By: Torsten Maiwald)

Canadair Regional Jet RJ100ER MSN 7004
C-GRJJ in service with Lufthansa Cityline
(Photo By: Torsten Maiwald)

MSN 7004
C-GRJJ, D-ACLA, C-FLNS, XA-UHM, C-FYFS, 5Y-BWR
Fourth Canadair Regional Jet Built
First CRJ delivered to airline service. Operated for Lufthansa Cityline, ALMA de México, and then DAC East Africa who subleased to CMC Aviation. Operating for United Nations Humanitarian Air Service in Kenya as of 2012.
Originally a RJ100ER, converted to RJ100LR then converted to RJ200LR configuration.

Aircraft History

C-GRJJ, 7004, was the fourth Canadair Regional Jet built and the first to go from Canadair directly into airline service. 7004 was leased from Canadair by Lufthansa Cityline and was delivered on October 29th, 1992. At that time 7004 was configured as a RJ100ER aircraft and remained as such when 7004’s registration was changed on January 19th, 1993 to D-ACLA. This was not, in fact, the intended registration for 7004, which was to be D-ARJA, but was not used. All further CRJs in Cityline’s first order were to be registered as D-ARJA and upwards, but did not and followed the D-ACL series instead.

It became apparent that the RJ100ER configuration would be insufficient for Cityline’s needs and 7004 was returned to Canadair for modifications and then returned to Cityline in the RJ100LR configuration under the same registration it had before. 7004 continued to operate in various titles but under the ownership and operation of Cityline.

In 2006, 7004 was returned to Bombardier and then was modified to the RJ200LR standard and held the registration C-FLNS before it was leased to ALMA de México in June 2007 in that airline’s full colour scheme. 7004 operated with this airline until November 2008 using the registration XA-UHM when ALMA de México ceased operations. 7004 then returned to Canada and was stored for a time at Dorval International airport through the balance of 2007 and all of 2008.

In January 2009, 7004 was taken on by Avionco Canada and its registration changed to C-FYFS. The aircraft was then offered for lease internationally and in April 2009, 7004 was handed over to CMC Aviation. 7004 then operated under United Nations colours and titles for a time before changing hands again and DAC East Africa operated 7004 for the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service in Kenya where it continues to operate as of 2012.

Canadair Regional Jet RJ100ER MSN 7004
C-GRJJ in service with Lufthansa Cityline
(Photo By: Torsten Maiwald)