The World's Least Successful Jet Airliner - Dassault Mercure

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In an attempt to replicate the success of their pioneering Sud Aviation Caravelle, the French pushed forward the creation of what ostensibly is a Boeing 737 clone, the Dassault Mercure 100, an airliner that, on the surface, has the general profile of its American rival, but in more ways than one surpassed the Boeing twinjet through its exceptional fuel efficiency, higher passenger capacity, improved reliability, and its spotless safety record.

Unfortunately, the Mercure's one critical failing when compared to the 737 was its range, which was barely enough to get the aircraft out of its French homeland in one go, the airliner having been tailored for the unique circumstances of France's very sparse population distribution, but this was a facet not appreciated by other nations looking for a viable short-to-medium range airliner, thus leading to only 12 examples of this curious machine being built overall.

The views and opinions expressed in this video are my personal appraisal and are not the views and opinions of any of these individuals or bodies who have kindly supplied me with footage and images.

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References:
- Key Aero (and their respective references)
- Wikipedia (and its respective references)

[fortyframed]

The problem with the Mercure was that it was too specialised for its niche. The 737-200 and the DC-9 both were airframes that had ease of modifying for later variants. They both had longer range while the Mercure was more technologically advanced, it engineered itself into a niche of being an oversized regional jet. Flying the Mercure was economical but only for French domestic flights or the occasional Paris-London flight. The Mercure's range was just too short for other trunk routes like Paris to Stockholm. In the US popular cities were too far apart for the Mercure to operate the routes while the 737-200 and the DC-9 could. There were still cities that were close enough for the Mercure but the competition had a better option for the US market due to them having a better appeal to customers.

[aoife]

Albeit a commercial failure, the lessons learned from the Mercure proved to be valuable for the A320 (which it greatly resembled).

Thanks for this.

[alumnia]

It didn’t sell but was a clear kick off for airbus to be created.

[chish]

FunFact: The Caravelle used the front fuselage and cockpit of the De-H Comet.

[Sacto]

But yet, I wouldn't call it a _complete_ failure. Reason: many of the engineers that worked on the Mercure program just conveniently moved from Dassault at Mérignac-Bordeaux Airport next to Bordeaux to (then) Airbus Industrie at Toulouse to work on what became the A320 single-aisle jet (and we know how successful the A320 Family has been to this day).

[chefchaudard]

I flew on the Mercure several times.
Air Inter made a point to stick to a tight schedule, fly fast and on time. And the Mercure was fast. 😊
It was perfectly suited for that… not for what the international market was looking for : more versatility and lower costs, at the expense of speed.

[jayvanasten]

First I want to Video!!
I live in Holland, and when I was a young boy this aircraft came very often to Rotterdam airport till the early/mid
Don't know if I'm I thought this plane made scheduled flights from Paris Orly to Rotterdam that
Sadly enough Air Inter from France was the only airline who operate this rare bird.
As a little boy I always thought this plane was a 737 sound or better said ''the noise'' was exactly the also his silhouette during take-off was pretty much the same....
When I was one day at the airport with my father to watch some aircrafts, ... this plane was just I was able to see it really close!
Funny enough there was a 737-200 on the platform from that moment I saw the planes were fairly different.
A man next to me had a conversation with my told me that the ''Air Inter plane'' was a very rare French made Dassault Mercure...
From that moment till today the Mercure is a real mysterious plane with a touch of melancholy to me.

[EstorilEm]

Everyone in comments “wow, this was a MUCH better plane than the American rivals, it was only missing out by not having range and being too complicated / expensive to build.“

Yeah, darn those minor details. 🤦‍♂️😂

Cracks me up that people think a 5cm wider fuselage or a higher rate of climb will sell airframes. Airlines couldn’t care less about that. Acquisition cost, maintenance cost, route flexibility (ie range) and fleet commonality (including a good parts network) are the things airlines care about. The 737 and MD products were FAR better in every one of those regards - hence why even subsidized European operators still wanted the 737 instead.

[rogerjohnson]

That was so cool, if only for showing the NAC 737, the precursor to Air New Zealand. It's been years since i saw those colours.

[BrianMadolid]

@11:00 - That variant must be very relaxing & soothing… 😉

[MarcPagan]

Thanks - From a former airline pilot, and current CFI in the USA.

I've been around airports of all types since 1995.
Yet, until your video I had never heard of the Dassault Mercure.

[Roucasson]

I flew frequently on Caravelle and Mercure in the seventies and eighties: The Caravelle was a dream, so smooth. Mercure was brutal, very bumpy flights… preparing landing, the Caravelle would just sail down and land lightly. On the contrary, the Mercure would deploy flaps and rev up the engines, making a lot of noise, jerking around. I hated that plane.

[miscbits]

let's not forget the 737 was cheap as hell to design, being a 707 fuselage (shared with the 727 and 757) with redesigned wing and empennage. There was so much commonality in tooling that it was essentially a side project for Boeing

[spacedock]

I remember seeing the odd Mercure at Lyon while operating 737-200's in there in the early 90's. At first I thought it was a 737 but looked odd somehow. When I queried my skipper about it he pointed out the dihedral tail and explained what it really was.

[sargentshadow]

When you create a plane on the assumption that france is the whole world, it's no surprise that it had no interest outside of france

[danielecolombo]

I was normally commuting between Paris and Nantes with this aircraft, was good and confortable

[antsgamingvideosnb]

The Mercure would make a great famous Flyer for MSFS!

[radiosnail]

Thought I saw a Mercure at LHR in the late 70s. It was in Air Inter markings, at the time I did not realise how rare they were. Have your considered doing a video on the VFW614?

[mdhazeldine]

The ASMR would've been much more successful if it launched in 2024 via a Twitch stream. :D

[lucrolland]

I have had the chance to fly the Dassault Mercure between Lyon and Lille with Air Inter. Indeed, a very pleasant flight.