Originally Posted by
Chuck D
Does Spirit take 90mins to turn a 321? Honestly not sure but I think they're around 220 seats. I know SWA does a clean as you go method to speed up turns. I really wonder whether a few minutes of turn time makes up for boring a much larger hole in the sky w/ a twin aisle at 200-230-ish pax and a much bigger fuel burn normally. Any way you cut it - even w/ a non round cross section, about 2x the internal volume will be apportioned to aisle vs a narrow body. We'll see if Boeing reinvents aerodynamics with the 797 or sticks w/ single aisle haha.
Aircraft turn times matter a lot for hub and spoke domestic, and point to point. They matter very little for 6-11 hour international flights.
Nobody every loved the 757 except the pilots and airlines. United spent 20 years trying to turn a 757 in less than an hour. When gas was cheap, you wanted to maximize aircraft and crew utilization. 737-900's and 321's didn't sell well back when gas was cheap prior to 2007.
When gas went to 100+ dollars, the pie chart of airline costs changed dramatically. All of a sudden, gas was the #1 expense by far. The elephant in the room became fuel cost per available seat mile. Even SWA couldn't stand it anymore and bought NG800's because their 700's were killing them on this basis.
Gas is still higher than it was for most of the last 40 years, but the execs are hedging their bets by buying long skinny airplanes. And no, you can't turn a 900 or 321 in 20 minutes.
I still think Boeing is either still deciding what to do, or just doing smoke an mirrors to screw with Airbus and their potential customers.
The 321NEO and 330 NEO are just to good, and too cheap to buy.