Whatever Happened To Continental's A300s? — Civil Aviation Forum

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Whatever Happened To Continental's A300s?

DesertJets From United States, joined Feb 2000, 6704 posts, RR: 18
Posted (8 years 7 months 10 hours ago) and read 236 times:

Whatever happened to CO's A300's? They seem to be about the same age or younger than their DC-10s. They seemed to be able to fly the same high denisty domestic routes. But they are gone, before their time. Does anyone know why?

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Stop drop and roll will not save you in hell. --- seen on a church marque in rural Virginia

2 replies: All unread, jump to last

Klwright69 From United States, joined Jan 2000, 1093 posts, RR: 3
Reply 1, posted (8 years 7 months 8 hours ago) and read 154 times:

I loved flying on CO's A300's (when they weren't broken). They were fun. However, I worked for CO here in Denver and they flew them out of here quite frequently. They were often a nightmare. They always broke down (causing 3-6 hour delays all the time). They also were weight restricted flying in and out of here during the summer due to Denver's high altitude. To EWR, they would take off 2/3 full all the time and if all the seats were sold the other pax were compensated to give up their seats. The airbus was not worth keeping. New next generation 737's and 757's perform much better in every way. They also hold fewer people than the airbus so they were more flexible in scheduling. Aging airbuses needed to be dumped to update CO's fleet. CO still needs the 10's for international flying, that's why they still have many of them left. They can't modernize the whole fleet all at once. The newer equipment is perfect for CO's needs. The 767 will come on line over the next couple of years. Then the 10's will be gone, and we'll probably see the 767 on transcons too I expect. Also the A300's lease payments were high. They required a whole different set of parts and maintenance procedures and the rest of their fleet is Boeing and DC-9 80's. They needed to go because they were infinitely more expensive than they were worth. High mainentance and high lease costs, and the revenue they brought in wasn't impressive.

DesertJets From United States, joined Feb 2000, 6704 posts, RR: 18
Reply 2, posted (8 years 7 months 6 hours ago) and read 125 times:

Ok, that makes sense. But then why did Pan Am and Eastern seem to have success with their A300 fleets, flying similar routes? And how about American's A300-600R's?

Stop drop and roll will not save you in hell. --- seen on a church marque in rural Virginia

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