Originally Posted by
FlyingSlowly
I guess I missed the XLR commitment to EWR and IAD first... Especially as the Neo arrived in ORD so strong and the XLR can apparently do close-Europe from there...
But is the ETOPS training of west coast Airbus crews is for nothing? Or is this just being done fleet-wide? But again, separate issue. Only takes a Neo to go to Hawaii, not an XLR...
The NEOs will be doing Hawaii. Those are 200 seat planes and are perfect for routes we currently fly with the guppy. The NEOs have been doing the certification runs currently to Hawaii. We don't need an XLR for Hawaii. The XLRs are going to be used to add a bunch of cities we currently don't fly to in Western Europe from EWR and IAD, per a town hall where they showed a map of Europe with an arc of the range of the XLR. I fully expect we won't see any Guppies going to Hawaii at some point and will just be Airbus, 757-300, 777 and 787 in the not too distant future. My guess is we don't have enough NEOs to fill out the ORD expansion and upgauging and all the Basic Economy seats those add to domestic markets, since they say its growing at 15% a years and they want to keep pressure on the LCCs. 2026 and 2027 are massive delivery years for the 320 NEO according to the fleet website, including all the leased planes we recently ordered. I bet late next year we see Airbus planes flying to Hawaii.