Originally Posted by
300SMK
Carl you've been doing this A LONG TIME. I figure between the other gig and being a 747 CA you've been near the people that make these decisions so I value your opinion quite a bit. NWA had an ample supply of 747s and A330s for payload reasons, is a 737 really feasible to Europe? What about all those bins I always see loading in the belly? Just seems like the natural progression would be 757s moving to the corner markets, transcontinental, over water, etc while the -900s would fill a niche in the central US, out of ATL on the FL shuttle and west coast to Hawaii; all markets where leisure is the norm vs cargo and business.
It's hard to judge man. Even with cargo, the 737-900ER is a very capable aircraft and could easily do the mission. The other good part is how much slower the airplane is. Since this TA only cares about aircraft block hours, the 737's smallness makes it cheaper for pilot costs, while its slowness helps out the block hour metric. The differential in speed alone could allow Delta to cut an entire flight out of the JV and still be good with the longer block hours produced by such a slow airplane.
For all those reasons the 737 is not only viable, it's very likely. If we kept the EASK metric, then this theory wouldn't make economic sense.
Carl