Fokker 100

Updated: October 2026 – A slim jet with two engines at the rear touches down, and suddenly the end of the fuselage splits open like a beak: if you see that, you most likely have a Fokker 100 in front of you. The largest airliner Fokker ever built was an everyday sight at German, Austrian and Swiss airports in the nineties. Today it is a real collector’s catch. Here you will learn how to reliably recognize the Fokker 100, how to tell it from the Fokker 70, F28 and other rear-engine jets, and where you can still find it.

What is the Fokker 100?

The Fokker 100 is a twin-engine regional jet for about 100 passengers. Fokker developed it in the eighties from the F28 Fellowship, a short-haul jet that had first flown in 1967. The new model got a clearly stretched fuselage, a reworked, larger wing, a digital cockpit with screen displays and, above all, new engines: two Rolls-Royce Tay engines at the rear. The program started in 1983, and the prototype with the registration PH-MKH took off on November 30, 1986.

Launch customer was Swissair, which took delivery of the first production aircraft on February 29, 1988. The largest customer became American Airlines with 75 aircraft; US Air, Brazil’s TAM, KLM and many European airlines also bought the type. For some US customers there was a version with the more powerful Tay 650, which allows more takeoff weight and range. You can find more about the British engine manufacturer on the page about Rolls-Royce.

The story ends abruptly: in March 1996 Fokker had to file for bankruptcy after the German shareholder DASA withdrew from the regional aircraft business. The last Fokker 100s were completed in 1997. In the end there were 283 production aircraft. Later attempts to revive the type as a modernized relaunch never got beyond plans.

The three features that are enough to identify it

Several types have rear engines and a T-tail. But the Fokker 100 has a combination that gives it away quickly in the field.

If you want to be sure, finally look at the registration and look it up in a database. How registrations are structured is explained in the article Understanding aircraft registrations.

Fokker 100, Fokker 70 or F28?

The three Fokker jets belong to one family and look alike. The Fokker 70 was created in the early nineties as a short version of the 100: Fokker removed fuselage sections, and wings and tail remained largely unchanged. Its first flight was on April 4, 1993, and only about 48 were built. The older F28, by contrast, is a generation of its own with different engines and a smaller wing.

Feature	Fokker 100	Fokker 70	Fokker F28
ICAO type code	F100	F70	F28
Length	about 35.5 m	about 30.9 m	clearly shorter depending on version
First flight	1986	1993	1967
Engines	Rolls-Royce Tay	Rolls-Royce Tay	Rolls-Royce Spey
Cockpit roof windows	no	no	yes
Built	283	about 48	241

The F28’s Spey engines sit in slimmer nacelles than the thicker Tays of the Fokker 100. The finest detail is at the cockpit: the F28 has small additional windows above the windshields, which were dropped on the Fokker 100. You will hardly experience F28s in operation in Europe anymore, though.

Lookalike risk: other jets with rear engines

In everyday life, confusion with other rear-engine types is much more likely than with an F28. The finder helps you narrow down the candidates.

The Bombardier CRJ900 is similarly long, but has a noticeably narrower fuselage with four seats per row, winglets and a tapering tail. The Boeing 717-200 also offers five seats per row, but its tail ends in the classic pointed way. And the Avro RJ85 does have a T-tail and a tail airbrake too, but carries four engines under a high-mounted wing – visible from any distance.

The Fokker 100 in German-speaking countries

For spotters in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the Fokker 100 was a familiar sight for a long time. Swissair, as launch customer, brought the first aircraft into airline service from 1988; at Zurich Airport the type was thus part of the picture early on. Zurich-based Helvetic Airways started in 2003 with a single Fokker 100 and built its first fleet around it. On June 14, 2019, the airline’s last Fokker 100 left the fleet; today Helvetic Airways flies Embraer jets.

In Austria, Austrian Airlines – also via the former regional subsidiary Tyrolean – used Fokker 70s and Fokker 100s. In 2015 the airline got the green light to take over used Embraer 195s and thus replace the Fokker fleet in the following years. The remaining Austrian Fokkers went to the Australian Alliance Airlines. At Vienna Airport this chapter is thus closed.

In the Netherlands, KLM Cityhopper flew both Fokker jets. The last KLM flight with a Fokker 70 took place on October 28, 2017. A former KLM Cityhopper Fokker 100 with the registration PH-OFE is preserved at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport as a public exhibit – one of the easiest ways to see the type up close.

Where you can still find the Fokker 100 today

The focus of the remaining fleet is far from Central Europe. The Australian Alliance Airlines is the largest operator; in mid-2025 it had about 25 Fokker 100s and 13 Fokker 70s in its fleet, alongside a growing share of Embraer E190s. QantasLink also used the Fokker 100 through Network Aviation in Western Australia but has been phasing the type out step by step since early 2026. In addition there are several airlines in Iran, most recently including Iran Air and Iran Aseman Airlines.

In Europe it is getting thin. Occasionally Fokker 100s turn up as government or VIP aircraft: Slovakia and France most recently kept the type in their government fleets. Whether these aircraft are still active and when they fly where is hard to predict. Tips on how to catch government aircraft anyway can be found in the article Spotting government aircraft. In addition, from 2003 Fokker Services offered converted used Fokker 100s as executive jets for corporate and private customers.

Place / occasion	Chance of a hit	Why
Australia	high	Alliance Airlines as the largest operator
Iran	medium to high	several airlines with Fokker fleets
Amsterdam Schiphol	certain, but static	PH-OFE as an exhibit
German, Austrian and Swiss airports	low	at most government, VIP or ferry flights

How to plan the hunt for a Fokker 100

With a rare type, preparation decides. A fixed schedule you can rely on hardly exists in Central Europe. Instead you work with tracking data and short reaction times.

How to follow flights live and what data ADS-B provides is explained in the guide to flight tracking with ADS-B. Which app suits best is shown by the comparison of flight radar apps. The landing direction depends on the wind; how to estimate it in advance is covered in the article Understanding the runway direction in use at an airport. Basic strategies for rarities are provided by the article Spotting rare aircraft.

Photo tips especially for the Fokker 100

The Fokker 100 is smaller than the jets that otherwise dominate observation decks, and it has its most exciting details at the tail. You can orient your pictures around that.

Always stay on publicly accessible areas. The article Is plane spotting allowed? summarizes what is permitted. If you are just starting out, Identifying aircraft types for beginners helps you sort through the many regional jets.

Why the Fokker 100 fascinates spotters

The Fokker 100 stands for a piece of European aviation history. It was the largest airliner Fokker ever built, and it competed directly with the small versions of the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A319. Against these families with their large production numbers, Fokker had no chance in the long run, and the 1996 bankruptcy ended production.

Precisely for that reason every sighting today is special. The successors in the segment of around 100 seats have long since been taken over by types like the Embraer E190 or the Airbus A220-100. If you still want to experience the Fokker 100 in service, you had better not wait too long – and note every registration, because there are fewer with every year.

Conclusion

Rear engines, a T-tail, a straight wing and above all the openable tail cone: you recognize the Fokker 100 by a combination that hardly any other type has. Length separates it from the Fokker 70, the missing roof windows from the F28. In German-speaking countries it has vanished from scheduled service, and worldwide only a few dozen aircraft are still flying – mainly in Australia and Iran.