Considering there's protection against the potential threat of supersonic aircraft making a comeback I don't see it far fetched to protect against further increase of NB fuel efficiency.

 

DEN-LHR on a 321? Someone's selling some serious timeshare properties with that one.

 

Airbus 321XLR
That route is 4,058 NM direct. I agree it’s at the practical limit for a 4,700 NM range aircraft, but these things seem to be gaining range.
and to those that think single aisle and premium seating don’t go together here’s JetBlue’s mint product

I am really disappointed that this type of flying wasn’t addressed in the global scope TA.

 

Definitely write your reps with these concerns.

 

C'mon mane. We can't be afraid to accept positive changes because we are afraid of our own shadow. Nobody is doing DEN-LHR in a NB

 

The XLR is having serious issues w certification in Europe due safety concerns w the extra fuel tanks. AB just got sent back to do a redesign that will likely be challenging to get the advertised range w a “safer” tank configuration. So TBD on these ultra long range NBs.

 

Trip I generally like your positive outlook, but to me this oversight is egregious.

We fly a lot of random routes to CDG/AMS/LHR mostly in the sooner or later retiring 7ER that could be accomplished by our partners in an NB. Those will not count against our scope with this global agreement.

On top of that I assume that our 320 category pilots would enjoy a RDU-CDG flight every once in awhile.

All this TA needs to be a win is some sort of balanced long haul NB hours clause. To me it’s a no until it is included.

 

WOW was doing LAX-KEF with a 321N prior to COVID. The airline went belly-up, but that doesn’t mean that Delta isn’t afraid to dump billions in failing carriers all while costing us jobs.

 

I’m confused about what you’re advocating. You want to make sure narrowbody jets get some ocean crossings, and give the company credit for putting that on a route instead of the proposed requirement for widebody flying? Surely I misunderstand what you want.

 

No, I’m not advocating that NB are required to do crossings instead of WB. Sorry, if my rambling came accurate that way.

I’m looking for protections against partner carriers swapping their current WB hours for NB and increasing frequency to cover the lost ASMs. Under this TA a partner doing this would lower their WB hours and thus lower our required WB hours since it’s set as a ratio.

This scope agreement has no protections for that, and that is the direction the industry is going. Smaller aircraft on higher frequencies for international. That’s how 787/350 killed off the 747/380, and that’s the sales pitch from Airbus for the 321LR and XLR models.

My thought above was trying to say this agreement at least needs to have a requirement that we have 1:1 growth in this type of flying. Better for us would be all partner long haul hours must equal our WB hours, but I’m more realistic than to expect that.