Originally Posted by
zippinbye
Over at Delta, the 321 NEO is coming pretty soon. Our current vacancy bid brings the type to LAX, where we are told it will supplant some of the 757 flying to the islands as well as our transcons. Sounds like it has the legs to fly all the distances involved, but needs plenty of pavement to take the load to the sky ( half the tires & brakes compared to a 757 can’t help). Our rumor mill has the 321 graded unsat for west coast OGG and LIH. Otherwise, it’s supposed to become our Island airplane. That analysis comes from an organization that could not make the 73N work to HI, while Alaska and Westjet and others have made it work. As a potential bidder, I want to know if the NEO is a legit full-load ship for the likes of LAX- HNL and KOA. What do you guys think?
LAX-LIH no problem. LIH-LAX problem. A 6,500' runway does not work very well. On any given day you can make it work by taking off with fuel to get to Kona, and gassing up there. Doing this would probably blow the profit margin.
Scheduling the trip LAX-KOA-LIH-KOA-LAX works very well, with the crew L/O in either LIH or KOA.
If the company also schedules another trip SFO-KOA-OGG-KOA-SFO, with timing so that the two can swap connecting passengers in KOA in both directions, this can be quite efficient.
Joe