Lazyshaun From United Kingdom, joined May 2005, 545 posts, RR: 0 Posted (8 years 1 week 6 days 5 hours ago) and read 2418 times:
Hi all,
I would like to know why the two main Japanese airlines (JAL/ANA), use so many widebodies for their domestic routes? Why not just use 737s or 320s for these routes? I know using things like a 757 or maybe 767, but 773 and 744 are too large I think to use on these small routes. This goes for eastern routes in general really, as many eastern airlines use large aircraft for small routes (e.g. Japan to China, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand)
Ktachiya From Japan, joined Sep 2004, 1729 posts, RR: 2 Reply 1, posted (8 years 1 week 6 days 5 hours ago) and read 2407 times:
I think you might have found a lot of information if you had read other posts on similar topics as this. Although there is a shift to frequency nowadays, think about how congested many airports in Japan are.
NRT only has one long rwy 34L/16R
ITM only has one long rwy 32L/14R
KIX has one rwy 06/24
OKA has one rwy 12/30
NGO has one rwy 18/36
So even if you wanted to get A320 and 737 off the ground on this, this is impossible. Think about the nature of Japanese ppl and look at the island nature of the whole country. Then airtransportation should be the easiest ways of taking you to places.
Doona From Sweden, joined Feb 2005, 3706 posts, RR: 14 Reply 3, posted (8 years 1 week 6 days 4 hours ago) and read 2358 times:
Quoting Lazyshaun (Thread starter): This goes for eastern routes in general really, as many eastern airlines use large aircraft for small routes (e.g. Japan to China, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand)
Japan to Korea? Say, NRT to ICN? A small route? I hope you mean that it is short. The Asian markets are huge! The population centres in Japan, and indeed the rest of Asia, are bigger than Europe and the USA. And since Japan is a pretty small place (geographically), demand for flying from Tokyo to Osaka is pretty huge. And as Ktachiya and FlySSC have already pointed out, since the amount of traffic is still pretty great, larger A/C are needed.
Cheers
Mats
Sure, we're concerned for our lives. Just not as concerned as saving 9 bucks on a roundtrip to Ft. Myers.
Lurch From United States of America, joined Jul 2008, 0 posts, RR: 2 Reply 5, posted (8 years 1 week 6 days 3 hours ago) and read 2297 times:
JAL and ANA use 747-400D D = Domestic which should be a give away as in these machines are specially made to handle a lot more cycles than a standard 747-400 1 take off 1 landing = 1 cycle.
JAL operate 8 747-446D machines and 2 747-346SR machine all on domestic and short routes along with a lot of its old 747-346s.
Also JAL Domestic has a massive fleet made up of a300s 767 777 DC-10-40s and loads of different MDs all on domestic routes!
ANA have 13 747-481Ds and 2 older 747-281SR in service and loads of non er 777s as well
Carpethead From Japan, joined Aug 2004, 2769 posts, RR: 4 Reply 8, posted (8 years 1 week 6 days 2 hours ago) and read 2224 times:
If HND had four runways, then the largest aircraft would be a 767/AB6. Unfortunately, it has only three runways and in essense is only a two runway operational airport. HND-CTS, FUK, & ITM are one of the top three airport pairs for pax numbers worldwide (HND-CTS being #1). ITM is smack in a city with slot limitation not due to congestion but limiting the amount of flights. Other than a handful of trunk routes to FUK, HND, CTS, & OKA, ITM is basically an A320/737 airport.
If Tokyo planners had foresight in the 1960s, they should have built four runways, but they didn't. Thus leading to use of 744D, 773, 772, 763 & AB6 on routes no more than two hours. HND is in all purposes slot limited due to congestion because from 0800 to 2100, there is a steady flow of arrivals and departures. NRT isn't that congested operationally but, the operators are very conservative to slot allocation.
FlySSC From France, joined Aug 2003, 7313 posts, RR: 61 Reply 10, posted (8 years 1 week 5 days 13 hours ago) and read 2068 times:
JAL and ANA were not the only airlines to use widebodies on a Domestic network.
Former French domestic Airline "Air Inter" was operating until the mid-90's a strong fleet of 22 A300 configured in a single 314 Y seats.
Air Inter (IT) was the launch company for the A330-300 and operated up to 4 aircraft, configured in a single 412 Y seats on the biggest routes in France, from ORY to MRS, NCE, BOD, TLS mostly.
All this was before the TGV (High speed train) expansion.
In 1988, IT leased a B747-100 from AF and was operating it from ORY to MRS, NCE and BOD weekdays.
IT was close to make a deal with JAL to buy 3 second-hand B747SR but finally, after strong pressure from Airbus, they bought 4 second-hand A300 (from Dan-Air & Hapag-Lloyd).
123 From Bolivia, joined Nov 2003, 739 posts, RR: 4 Reply 11, posted (8 years 1 week 5 days 12 hours ago) and read 2035 times:
Just check www.amadeus.net for any given Monday, HND/ITM (Haneda, Tokyo, to Itami, Osaka) and you will note the high quantity of widebody frequencies on that one given route. The airlines do that because of slot, yes, but also because normally the loads are really very high. Not to forget, the bullet train that runs paralell I think every 10 minutes. You´ve got a huge quantity of travellers between - in this example - these two cities only.
Different is SDD (Santos Dumont, Rio) - CGH (Congonhas, Sao Paulo), where no widebodies are used probably because of airport / runway capacities, but if you want you can fly just about every 15 minutes between those cities. It´s like hopping on a city bus.
LH takes occasionally a 744 between FRA/BER (TXL) due to high loads, but that is not scheduled, it is normally last-minute adjustment due to demand.
RG use their MD-11 / 777 between POA-GRU-GIG both to meet demand and also as ferry flights, which is same as LB using their 763's between CBB-VVI
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