Originally Posted by
chrisreedrules
I guess agree to disagree then. I don’t see it as a threat. You can fly an inefficient old widebody JFK-LHR that isn’t at capacity but can carry a bunch of cargo and it will make money… Vs 2x XLRs or MAX that are full but can’t carry cargo and you can’t.
That being said, the high efficiency narrowbodies do have a special (and potentially lucrative) niche. Trans-Atlantic flight to LHR and CDG ain’t it.
I think that niche gets even smaller when you consider how large our network and customer base is. We can profitably fill and fly WBs with pax and cargo pretty quickly if its to connect a secondary US (coastal) city to a secondary overseas city. The ranges on the planes in question have increased, but not enough to open up any two points with anywhere the same degree of flexibility of even our ERs. JB (or JV) isn't about to start going BNA to BRU or PHX to MUN. Absent of a connecting hub, which vastly favors WB flying, it is no small thing to generate enough originating/terminating traffic to connect two points profitably. The big moneymaker for us or our JVs is flying a larger number of WBs (divided per the scope agreement) between hubs to connect into the complimentary network or WBs flying codeshared flights between secondary markets where the JV and our marketing networks fill that airplane with pax and cargo to generate A LOT more revenue per flight. The only reason supersonic needed to be addressed is because of its potential to take the really high value customer base out of the regular network (at a huge price premium).