A380 unveiling, 1/18/05, Live.

nobody wrote:

"Frank F. Matthews" wrote:

Actually I haven't seen many small aircraft and no empty flights in the
US for the past several years. The problems are a lack of revenue and
not a lack of passengers. Now finding passengers wanting to fly limited
routes so as to fly a 380 that may be a problem.


You don't get it. There are markets where demand is high. High enough
that the USA airlines, instead of getting bigger planes, put multiple
flights one after the other because they philosophically refuse to fly a
big plane. Trans-atlantic flights don't need much frequency becayse the
window is not that big. In the evening, you can run on big flight and it
won't affect passenger's schedules, especially if it means you get the
prefered landing slot at LHR to allow the right connections.

Southwest's "one plane fits all", has already been broken since WN has
737s of different sizes.

Secondly, it is also its achile's heel. Right now, ON AVERAGE,
Southwest's policy works out with costs that are lower than the legacy
carriers. Not so much because the 737 is a better plane for its whole
network, but simply because Southwest is better runned, better managed,
and has better staff. (costs less, does more).


The 737s are a better size for Southwest. They fit the model of rapid
turn around and quick boarding. A significantly larger plane would blow
the business model.


However, if you were to clone Southwest, and then make changes to that
clone so that it would sharply focus its fleet to have the most
efficient aircraft for a specific route and be able to manage that fleet
properly, the cloned Southwest would be able to have lower costs on many
routes compared to the original Southwest, and more importantly, would
be able to serve markets that the current Southwest can't serve.

So, take AA for instance on its JFK-LHR route. Because it operates a
large number of flights, its average crew/pax ratio is higher than
airlines that operate fewer flights with bigger planes. So AA's costs
have to be higher on that route.

Similarly, because AA lacks 747s, it can't really serve asia well, nor
the south pacific, and must rely on its Oneword partners.

Consider the case of Virgin. It started off with a few aircraft that
were extremely well focused on the routes it wanted to fly and it was
succesful and grew from there.

AA is too big and wants to apply one-plane-fits-all for its intl flights
to simplify its fleet. But that means that individual flighst are not
operated at best possible efficiency, especially on routes where you
have someone like Virgin that does operate at best efficiency for that route.


Yes, there are compelling arguments to reduce aircraft types in a fleet.
But when your 777s used domestically are different from those on
atlantic and different from those used in pacific, does that really give
you much in terms of fleet flexibility ? The minute you change seat
assignments due to aircraft change, you get the same headaches.

On long hauls though, there is a compelling argument in favour of using
1 plane type on a route. Why ? So that at your remote base, any pilot
currently staying there is able to take the next flight back should one
crew be incapacitated etc.


Having fewer plane types may simplify fleet management and maintenance.
But it also means that your network does not operate at its most
efficient level because you're not using the best aircraft for your
routes, you're using an aircraft that is average for your average route.

What happens when for each route you operate, there is a smaller airline
that operates a far more efficient aircraft for that route ? Then none
of your flighst are competitive, even though on paper, your fleet is
well managed.