Originally Posted by
Softpayman
From a pilot perspective of course we'd like a 14hr capable plane to fly the 6-8hr flights from the East coast to Western Europe.
I'm not sure how cargo fits into the equation...Especially for narrow body aircraft not capable of fitting containers. Continental (later United) and USAir clearly used narrow bodies to a great extent out of EWR/PHL throughout Ireland/UK/France.
The annoyance of the occasional fuel stop is weighted into any decision. Do you want a plane that needs an occasional fuel stop or one that becomes a huge financial anchor if a region becomes a huge money loser. Well, we have ten A350s ($250million each) and since Europe market is shrinking and Brazil is in a depression we'll be deploying them on JFK-MCO.
I'm not sure it would be an "occasional" fuel stop....probably the norm and the non-stop would be the exception.....
Cargo wouldn't fit into the equation if we did Europe with narrow bodies IMO.....
Like I said earlier, go big or not at all.....if you half-a$$ this, that's when you get in trouble....once we get the narrow body fleet to the level that could feed a Europe flight schedule, I think you need to go with wide bodies...if the market stays depressed, use them to go south....South American is one of the fastest growing air travel market....
Is it a risk? Of course. Everything in this industry is. But I think there's a reason our CFO "Decided to go spend more time with his family". Robin wanted the last and most vocal barrier to larger fleet out of the way to further his vision of where he wants JB to be/go in the next 5-10 years.