gilesdavies From United Kingdom, joined Dec 2003, 2880 posts, RR: 1 Posted (5 months 3 weeks 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 10573 times:
There has been talk on here many times about easyJet flying long haul and using wide bodied aircraft on these routes...
I just wanted to turn that idea on its head, and wanted peoples opinions on if the airline purchased wide bodied aircraft (which for arguments sake, Im going to suggest the A330-200), on their existing route network, would this work?
I was looking at some of the airlines frequencies on their popular routes to the major tourist destinations that they operate and noticed they are flying up to12 flights a day to the likes of Palma just from the London area in the summer time, with similar numbers to Alicante, Malaga and Barcelona. Also destinations to the likes of Sharm El Sheikh, Corfu, Ibiza and Paphos see 3-4 departures a day.
Would it not make sense to consolidate many of these flights which are flown by A319/A320's, to larger aircraft like the A330-200 which could accomodate update about 360-380 passengers in a high density economy config?
Many of the flights are at present flown within 2-3 hour of each other and as these are primarily tourist flights, frequencies and timings of the flights are not as important as they maybe are to business travellers who require high frequency routes to major business centres.
Im not going to pretend Im any expert and have no ideas of costs, but would the economics not stand up for flying a single larger aircraft to a destination as opposed to two A320's to the same place? I would imagine this would especially be true on longer destinations like SSH, TLV, AMM and TFS.
I was thinking of a small sub-fleet of around 50-60 A330-200's.
Actually looking back on it, charter airlines have been doing this for years like Monarch and Thomson, operating the 767's, Tristars and A300's within Europe. Would this concept work for low cost airlines?
gigneil From United States of America, joined Nov 2002, 16215 posts, RR: 88 Reply 1, posted (5 months 3 weeks 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 10535 times:
Quoting gilesdavies (Thread starter): I was thinking of a small sub-fleet of around 50-60 A330-200's.
migair54 From Spain, joined Jun 2007, 1276 posts, RR: 0 Reply 2, posted (5 months 3 weeks 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 10500 times:
I think they won´t fit very much in current network, maybe to very long routes like Egypt, full of holiday makers, but i still think one of the advantages of Easyjet is offering few flight in the same route and attracting more pax doing so.
Quoting gilesdavies (Thread starter): I was thinking of a small sub-fleet of around 50-60 A330-200's.
Pretty small....
Delta 32
Emirates 25
Thai 25
Cathay 35
Air China 33
Qatar 29
Quoting gilesdavies (Thread starter): I was looking at some of the airlines frequencies on their popular routes to the major tourist destinations that they operate and noticed they are flying up to12 flights a day to the likes of Palma just from the London area in the summer time, with similar numbers to Alicante, Malaga and Barcelona. Also destinations to the likes of Sharm El Sheikh, Corfu, Ibiza and Paphos see 3-4 departures a day.
And what do to with that planes the rest of the year???
JU068 From Serbia, joined Aug 2009, 2579 posts, RR: 6 Reply 3, posted (5 months 3 weeks 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 10336 times:
If Norwegian's model proves to be successful, what are the odds easyJet might do the same? Not necessarily out of the United Kingdom but maybe out of a less competitive market.
TC957 From UK - England, joined May 2012, 334 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (5 months 3 weeks 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 10292 times:
Exactly. Yes, they would fill them on the longer leisure routes at peak times, but then be wasted during the rest of the time. Also, wide-bodies aren't condusive to rapid 30 - 40 min turnaround times that LCC's demand of their fleet.
Same as why WN, WS etc haven't gone for 767/A330's.
f4f3a From United Kingdom, joined Jul 2004, 246 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (5 months 3 weeks 3 days 9 hours ago) and read 10176 times:
It does not fit with their model. As stated earlier the question of wide bodies is what to do with them in the off season.
Would these aircrafts extra capacity compensate the extra acquisition and running costs. Probably no.
This carrier is about focusing more on business routes which could provide revenue 365 days a year. They want to be no 1 or 2 on the top 100 business routes in Europe. Which means narrow body high frequency.
They have had however used wet lease a/c on longer routes I.e 757, 767 from Titan and i believe sold the extra capacity.
On routes that are slot restrained like cdg and special routes like tlv and Moscow a larger a/c could be handy.
I would expect the largest a/c to be ordered as a321 or 737-9. In lcc config prob would hold 220 pax which would be useful
Increase.
PlymSpotter From Spain, joined Jun 2004, 11116 posts, RR: 63 Reply 6, posted (5 months 3 weeks 3 days 9 hours ago) and read 10105 times:
Key question: what do they do with them in the autumn, winter and spring? There is no demand for such a large fleet of widebodies outside the peak holiday season, and only a short blip for the ski season. Short term charter work is an option for smaller carriers with a few aircraft spare, but such a large fleet would flood this relatively small market.
Regarding long haul, if this was to happen it would almost certainly not be the current easyJet, but a separate company formed as a vehicle to drive the project independently and establish a firewall between it and easyJet. Although it's conceivable that they would use the same branding, much like easyJet Swiss or the WizzAir's.
TC957 From UK - England, joined May 2012, 334 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (5 months 3 weeks 3 days 9 hours ago) and read 9831 times:
I can't speak for AB, but MON & THO do use A300 / 767 to Canary Islands and Egypt all year round but not Med routes in winter. But these flights are mostly IT charters where tour opertaors take seats in bulk, which is not easyJet's modus operandi ( yet, until the Thomas Cook contract starts next summer )
MON A300's and THO 767's also do the weekend ski charters in winter, again mostly for the ski tour operators.
EZYAirbus From United Kingdom, joined Sep 2003, 2448 posts, RR: 53 Reply 9, posted (5 months 3 weeks 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 9592 times:
I can see them fitting in, in the winter months when there isn't the demand then lease them out, I remember Garuda taking Britannia/Thomson 767s on lease, I'm sure they would take an EZY A330 for a couple of months, especially as they now operate the type.
Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21464 posts, RR: 24 Reply 11, posted (5 months 3 weeks 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 9235 times:
Quoting TC957 (Reply 4): Also, wide-bodies aren't condusive to rapid 30 - 40 min turnaround times that LCC's demand of their fleet.
Same as why WN, WS etc haven't gone for 767/A330's.
In 1977 Eastern briefly tried using the L-1011 on the LGA-BOS Shuttle service. Boarding/deplaning took too long to permit short turnarounds and they dropped that experiment fairly quickly. In 1980 they tried again with 280-seat A300s. That didn't last much longer, for similar reasons.
LX138 From United Kingdom, joined Jul 2009, 349 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (5 months 3 weeks 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 8457 times:
It could work, and actually with a fleet of 50-60 aircraft as you suggest, could be quite cost effective.
However, they won't do it because it's not their model - which is lots of multiple frequency on a single type (albeit they have the 319 and 321 now) aircraft.
An A330 is considerably more expensive to operate, and therefore the yields would need to be a lot higher - which is something EZY would struggle to do. Remember too, any 330 in an all economy configuration actually seats a lot of people!
The only reason the charter airlines use widebodies (including on short haul) is because 99% of them have a long-haul network. The widebodies then get used on the shorthaul trips because of the lower utilisation most charters usually have with them. Monarch, Thompson certainly didn't order A330's/767's due to heavy Friday night demand to Malaga/Kos/Rhodes et al!
AAMDanny From United Kingdom, joined Apr 2008, 315 posts, RR: 0 Reply 13, posted (5 months 3 weeks 2 days 13 hours ago) and read 6285 times:
The operating costs would also be higher, higher take off/landing fee's, turn around fee's would also be longer and more £££.
Also it would require more than 4 cabin crew (they would probably operate it with about 8)
Airlines like TCX, TOM and MON can fill a wide body on these high demand holiday routes because they have a Travel Agent/Tour Operator behind them pushing and filling the seats. I know EZY work with a lot of travel agents/tour operators
However a more logical step would be for EZY to start with a sub-fleet of A321's. It's 40-ish more seats, it's implementation costs would be low as it's a sister ship of the A319/320, the crew training costs would be minimal and it offers growth opportunities, it's could also be used on the routes that are busier in the winter months such as Ski/Winter Sun destinations, leaving the 319/320's to operate rest of the network. It would probably fit in well at LGW and MAN.
The ex-MYT A321's (now at TCX) are fitted with 220 with 4 LAV's and a full galley at the rear and 1 1/2 galley at the front so it would be interesting to see how much capacity could be stretched in a EZY config.
BasilFawlty From Netherlands, joined Jun 2009, 1254 posts, RR: 1 Reply 14, posted (5 months 3 weeks 2 days 13 hours ago) and read 6165 times:
Quoting AAMDanny (Reply 13): The ex-MYT A321's (now at TCX) are fitted with 220 with 4 LAV's and a full galley at the rear and 1 1/2 galley at the front so it would be interesting to see how much capacity could be stretched in a EZY config.
Zero additonal seats, because the A321 is not certified for more then 220 seats.
'Every year donkeys and mules kill more people than plane crashes'
gilesdavies From United Kingdom, joined Dec 2003, 2880 posts, RR: 1 Reply 16, posted (5 months 3 weeks 2 days 12 hours ago) and read 5657 times:
Quoting AAMDanny (Reply 13): The operating costs would also be higher, higher take off/landing fee's, turn around fee's would also be longer and more £££.
Also it would require more than 4 cabin crew (they would probably operate it with about 8)
Quoting LX138 (Reply 12): An A330 is considerably more expensive to operate, and therefore the yields would need to be a lot higher - which is something EZY would struggle to do. Remember too, any 330 in an all economy configuration actually seats a lot of people!
I fully appreciate that and hence why I am suggesting an A330 replaces an A319 or A320 two for one on routes where they fly twice daily, where there is not necessarily the need for lots of frequencies but just the demand to travel between two destinations.
So it would be interesting to note what the cost differences would be to fly an A330 like LTN-TLV or SSH as opposed to operating two A320's as they do at present, to cope with the demand.
True you would need atleast 7-8 crew, but that is no more than flying two A320's, but you save on pilots only requiring two as opposed to four.
Also the A330-200 would enable the airline to open up new routes to longer destinations that fit within the LCC model, but are just too much of a stretch for an A320 like London to Dubai or maybe routes to like Nigeria or Ghana. Which are only about a 6hr flight and could be flown with the same crew there and back in one day.
Also the turnaround time on the longer routes with easyJet is 45 mins to an hour. Im sure an A330 could be turned around in that time. No cleaning required, passengers exit via the rear door and board via the front!
Air Asia do their turnarounds of their A330's in 1hr 15mins, and I am sure that can be improved upon!
GT4EZY From United Kingdom, joined Dec 2007, 1724 posts, RR: 4 Reply 17, posted (5 months 3 weeks 2 days 6 hours ago) and read 4275 times:
Quoting BasilFawlty (Reply 14): Zero additonal seats, because the A321 is not certified for more then 220 seats.
Plus Easyjet doesn't cram anymore seats in than the charters and actually has better seat pitch. The advertised 29" only refers to the last row which is tight.
Quoting LX138 (Reply 12): Thompson certainly didn't order A330's/767's due to heavy Friday night demand to Malaga/Kos/Rhodes et al!
But they didn't order them exclusively for long haul either.
Quoting gilesdavies (Reply 16): Also the A330-200 would enable the airline to open up new routes to longer destinations that fit within the LCC model, but are just too much of a stretch for an A320 like London to Dubai or maybe routes to like Nigeria or Ghana. Which are only about a 6hr flight and could be flown with the same crew there and back in one day.
Don't dwell on the there and back ethos too much. If a route was profitable but slightly out of range for a one crew there and back, most LCC's would work it some how....even if that involved layover.
My opinion..... There are routes that would support A330 type of aircraft but those routes wouldn't be sufficient justification for operating them in the Winter season. Perhaps if slot constrained airports became critically constrained then there might, in theory, be a real need for them but that would also involve a bit of a change in culture for the whole European industry in terms of frequency taking a back seat.
I think someone is right in saying that the A321, the 739 (or both) are more likely.
Long haul: Not in the company's plans but one time ATH was the absolute furthest destination and rumoured only to be on the network for Stelios' benefit. How things can change so who knows.......I think you would be looking at 5+ years before long haul if it was to happen.
aerorobnz From Rwanda, joined Feb 2001, 6325 posts, RR: 14 Reply 18, posted (5 months 3 weeks 1 day 22 hours ago) and read 4069 times:
someone mentioned in another thread that you couldn't pay them enough to the fly the saha 707s......I say the sameabout a U2 A330....yuck....the only thing worse would be an FR 330...:-P
LX138 From United Kingdom, joined Jul 2009, 349 posts, RR: 0 Reply 19, posted (5 months 3 weeks 1 day 17 hours ago) and read 3726 times:
Quoting gilesdavies (Reply 16):
True you would need atleast 7-8 crew, but that is no more than flying two A320's, but you save on pilots only requiring two as opposed to four.
Also the A330-200 would enable the airline to open up new routes to longer destinations that fit within the LCC model, but are just too much of a stretch for an A320 like London to Dubai or maybe routes to like Nigeria or Ghana. Which are only about a 6hr flight and could be flown with the same crew there and back in one day.
But that proposal is most defintely not within their LCC model - high aircraft utilisation versus yield ratio per flight time is hugely important to EZY and FR. The economics are completely different. On another note, I doubt that yields are good ex-UK to both those countries right now.
Quoting gilesdavies (Reply 16): Also the turnaround time on the longer routes with easyJet is 45 mins to an hour. Im sure an A330 could be turned around in that time. No cleaning required, passengers exit via the rear door and board via the front!
I think you are really pushing it with a 45 min turnaround on the A330. There was another thread somewhere about record turnaounds but someone else on here might know what the general - and min record turnaound is for a 330.
Lufthansa From Christmas Island, joined May 1999, 3074 posts, RR: 10 Reply 20, posted (5 months 3 weeks 1 day 16 hours ago) and read 3659 times:
Quoting gilesdavies (Reply 16):
Air Asia do their turnarounds of their A330's in 1hr 15mins, and I am sure that can be improved upon!
You have to remember too they're turning it around for a long haul operation, and with 2 classes and enough for 9 abreast in economy and enough for several services. That takes longer than a shorter flight....just refuelling time alone dictates that.
Quoting LX138 (Reply 19): I think you are really pushing it with a 45 min turnaround on the A330. There was another thread somewhere about record turnaounds but someone else on here might know what the general - and min record turnaound is for a 330.
I'll give you a few closer to home examples and another LCC. Jetstar. Jetstar successfully uses the type on medium and long haul flights. Some are 10 hrs, some are just 4. and there are the odd flights in Australia they do that are a little over 1 as a 'stop' before the long haul. These flights can be turned around quite fast.
But while i'm looking at these two examples lets look at what Qantas and Virgin Australia do. They use the type between Sydney and Melbourne. a mere 1.5 hr flight. But they mix those flights with flights to perth. a 5 hr flight. What this means, is that daily aircraft utilisation is still high. You don't need to minimise turn around times if your average stage length is longer, they key is, how many hours is the aircraft being utilised in a day. With short haul aircraft, that only fly an hrs stage length on average, if you take an hr to turn it around, yes that's a lot less flying per day. But if the average stage length is longer, then it becomes less important. A friend of mine regularly boards the A330-200 in high density domestic configuration at QF in around 20 mins. Remember the thing has containerised cargo bins, and if you only need to take on a smaller amount of fuel for a 5 hr flight instead of an 11 hr flight it takes less than half the time. So to conclude, I think yes, if the thing was operating 3 or 4 hr flights it could be done and still get a good 12 hours utilisation out of it. or if it was shorter flights, say 2 hrs mixed with a few longer ones, once again I think it would work. it just won't work as well if you want it to do 1 hr hops all day every day. And on the longer flights, it would have the added benefit of being able to carry cargo, when the a320/737 its stretched too close to its limits. That's additional revenue.
Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21464 posts, RR: 24 Reply 21, posted (5 months 3 weeks 1 day 9 hours ago) and read 3414 times:
Quoting GT4EZY (Reply 17): Quoting LX138 (Reply 12):
Thompson certainly didn't order A330's/767's due to heavy Friday night demand to Malaga/Kos/Rhodes et al!
But they didn't order them exclusively for long haul either.
But a heavy longhaul aircraft like the A330 makes no sense for a strictly shorthaul carrier like U2. Landing fees (based on maximum takeoff weight regardless of the length of the flight) would be much higher on every flight. You're flying all that weight around for nothing. And what do you do with the aircraft in the off-season? Just doesn't make sense for a LCC that seems to be doing very well without widebodies.
danielkandi From Denmark, joined Sep 2012, 61 posts, RR: 0 Reply 22, posted (5 months 3 weeks 1 day 8 hours ago) and read 3323 times:
I used to hate them and Ryanair, just because it was the "thing" to do. Granted i've only ever had one flight with Ryanair and can't remember ANYTHING from it, as it was done hungover, and I remember a visit with my head into the bowl in the back due to turbulence. But Easyjet, if you dont mind the hassle of boarding, or even if you buy the extra's as speedyboarding, and pay for bags, then they are really good. Always quite cheerio crew.
I'd paid for row 3 in MAN airport yesterday. Well worth it, as most people on the flight were tourists not willing to pay for that stuff. I ended up with all of 3a to c for myself. Although im gold with KLM, 400 pounds one way from MAN to AAL is insane. I paid 129 GBP for 2 bags, speedyboarding, and the flightitself. Alot of cash saved. And the flight offered alot of great spotting as we had "close calls" with a 332 or 333 and an 320 also.
I hate all monkeyclass config, but if I wasn't going for work, and had to pay myself, a 330 would be nice to get onboard with Easyjet. Didn't they lease 757 a couple of years back ?
Flown on : md80, md95, Avro RJ85/100, Q400, Atr42/72, a319/320/321, a332/a333, a343/346, b733 and up, 757, 747, 767 and
BasilFawlty From Netherlands, joined Jun 2009, 1254 posts, RR: 1 Reply 24, posted (5 months 3 weeks 1 day 7 hours ago) and read 3238 times:
Quoting B777LRF (Reply 23): I wonder how an A330 with 300+ passengers would fit into the 20 minute turnaround model. Not very well, I guess.
It was never 20 minutes, that's at Southwest. It used to be 25 minutes, but that has been increased to 30 minutes at most airports these days. It's even longer (up to 45-50 minutes) at some Mediterranean airports and/or after very long flights.
'Every year donkeys and mules kill more people than plane crashes'
25 peterinlisbon: I wonder how much money they would actually save. An A330 costs probably about the same as 2 A320s, it probably costs about twice as much to fuel, you
26 aerorobnz: CI turn their 333 TPE-SYD-AKL-SYD-TPE flight around with 1h10 at every stop. I believe we actually achieved a 56 minute turn the other day.... so yes
27 2travel2know2: Is there any year-around high demand route currently flown by U2 which can't possibly get a frequency increase and an A321 wouldn't be enough? Is ther
28 GT4EZY: You're preaching to the converted here. I never said they could. What I did say in reply to someone saying that Thomson didn't order 767's for short
29 raffik: Why would U2 want an aircraft this large? Passengers want flexibility- the choice of multiple departures per day rather than one single flight which m
30 art: I imagine you could not nomally fly short ranges using aircraft designed to fly long ranges. If you take off with tanks half empty and do not have dem
31 raffik: I know that MEA during the summer use their A330s to Larnaca - 30 minutes, Cairo -1 hour and Amman, 40 minutes. But their yields are quite high- ther
32 LX138: The problem is that the 50% more passengers do not cover the (significantly) increased overheads operating under the EZY business model. Really? What
33 BasilFawlty: It's Thomson, not Thompson! The 767's were ordered for longhaul in combination with short - and mediumhaul during peak times when demand is very high
34 GT4EZY: They didn't buy them exclusively for long haul. They were used widely across the med and canaries and not necassarilly for increasing utilitisation.
35 GCT64: MON have announced they are dropping wide body operations (and they canx their 787 order) and are moving to a single type, narrow body fleet in order
36 bwaflyer: Regarding turnaround - BA manage to turn a 767-300 on shorthaul in under an hour, I've been on a CPH where the turn around was about 45 minutes as we
37 LGWflyer: Yup they did, they had 4 of them. 2 came from Air Finland, 1 was from Titan and the other Astraeus. Also you probably know already but anyway, they h
38 mandala499: It's simple economics! Those widebodies ain't cheap to run! (Unless you're carrying cargo). Doing LTNSSH is about 2200NM via air routes, assuming wit
39 GT4EZY: To be fair though Easyjet aircraft can operate 4 X 4hour+ sectors a day in the Summer. I don't think 330's will happen, not in the short/medium term a
40 LGWflyer: Didn't they struggle with the ex GB A321's though? I thought I can remember reading somewhere on here that they were too big... I might be wrong, but
41 peterinlisbon: I'm wondering if anyone can answer me this - why are narrow body aircraft so much more efficient than widebodies? It seems that part of the reason low
42 Polot: Because they are much much lighter (and all the benefits that entails, such as needing less fuel). They were designed from the onset to operate short
43 LGWflyer: The 747 is still around after 50 years and hasn't changed that much over the years. The 737 and 747 are very efficient well designed aircraft, why ch
45 gilesdavies: Thank you Mandala, exactly the kind of answer I was looking for! I was very curious at how the costs of running 2x A320's over the same route v a sin
46 Viscount724: Oasis Hong Kong had a bad business strategy with something like 75 J class seats on each of their 744s. Their competitors matched or even undercut th
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