Ok well at this point I'd be surprised there's no wide bodies listed on that order.

 

Can't freak Wall Street out all at one time...

And, widebody rumor is about 24 years old at this point. It can drive, it can vote, it can drink beer, it can almost rent a car...

It's rumoured they have been offered the contractual right to buy A330s at A321XLR pricing. If that's true, there is no urgency to include them with another order.

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I was skeptical of the inclusion of 320Neos, but those will probably be placeholders for the A220-500 or 321XLRs.

 

Or, I think there are some hot/high airports that need the best combination of performance, range and drift down capabilities. Like Lima, etc... They would use them on a select number of routes like those red line of death routes.

 

I award you no points.

 

hmmmmm, funny how the red line just got lifted

 

What is the point? There are still airports that require special qual, still airports that have to cross the Andes, and have airports in the region that have drift down requirements more suited to an A320 vs an A321, and have performance limitations departing some fields. They can be done today with an A320CEO, but those don't last forever, will need to be replaced someday, and they are long legs which means an A320NEO will offer substantial fuel savings over a CEO, were one to be available.

And that's not including any new destinations that are currently out of range, or on the margins, that they may envision for a small fleet of A320NEOs that are better suited to the performance buffers of an A320.

 

I'm open to your line of thought, but I'm not sure they'd ever buy 320s again. Can a 220 not do this high/hot/heavy work?

 

I don't know the precise capabilities of the A220, but in its current form it struggles to do BOS-PHX with a full load. FLL to some of the SA flights are longer than that, and with A320NEOs they could look at airports even further than what we already do.

And of course the A220 is smaller, and capacity and payload, and even cargo bin space might not be ideal for those routes. Ever done SDQ/STI on the A321? More bags than wheelchairs in RSW. Plus the SDQ/STI wheelchairs!

A small sub-fleet of A320s for certain routes/performance requirements really isn't that much of a surprise. A321NEO isn't that great for driftdown and hot/high performance. And I don't think the A220 is ideal in all cases, although the A220 does have good performance, still may not be ideal for all routes, especially when range is a factor. The A220 payload increase will help, but it still won't be an A320NEO in my opinion.

 

I can see your logic, but if it wasn’t JetBlue, who ordered them? If the 320 isn’t really good for B6, who is it good for? What’s different for them?