Originally Posted by
ffay005
I simply cannot understand why they didn't choose the A318, which is a full-size jet with more or less the same number of seats as the Embraers. Since the A318 is part of the A320 family, AY could use the same cockpit and cabin crews as well as maintenance, which should be a huge synergy benefit. They would basically only have one type of short-haul planes, which should make a lot of things a whole lot easier.
The A318 suffers from the same problem as the B737-600: it's an arbitrarily constructed (i.e. shortened) small version from a plane that was really designed to be larger (A320/737-700/800). This results in quite bad fuel economics on a per seat basis. Pretty much the only reason why the A318 exists is the fleet commonality advantage which you pointed out - but apparently this doesn't offer enough savings vs. the increased fuel costs. The A318 has been a big failure for Airbus.
The E-jets were designed for the <100 seat market - this makes for much better fuel economics.