long range aircraft flying short-range routes?

I have seen a 777 do a short range hop (under 200NM) but i beleive some
investigations revealed that this short multi time per day hop had had the
two flights before it cancelled on mechanicals (777's stick out like sore
thumbs in tha airport i train at)


"150flivver" wrote in message
...
On Mar 15, 11:35 pm, Orval Fairbairn
wrote:
In article ,



tupolev204 wrote:
Hi, this is my very first post.
As you see, Im a bit of Tupolev fan hehe, and would like if someone
could give me some clearity on this.

TU 204-300 has a capacity of 142 pax. and can fly non stop between
Moscow - Vladivostok, which is about 6.500km

Could this airplane be easily used for short routes, like the A320 which
has also about 150 pax. (business + economy).

Or is it really requierd to have an airplane specially designed for
short routes fly only on those?
Thanks in advance for your replies!

Of course, it would work! All you have to do is reduce the fuel load to
do the shorter routes.


Certainly it is possible to use a long range aircraft on short
routes. The real question is whether it is economical to fly long
range aircraft on short range routes. I don't know the specific
figures for a TU 204-300 vs. an A320 so I can't make an informed
opinion but my gut feeling is with cost of fuel escalating, an
aircraft needs to be specifically optimized for the routes it will fly
to be economically viable.