Originally Posted by
CALMSP
stretched to the limits financially? No, Gordon wanted multiple flights to each destination that CO flew. And if you do that, you wont have enough widebody' a/c to do so, unless your fleet is EK!
When CO made its big expansion to overseas travel, they had a very small fleet of 20 772's and 22 767's (762's & 764's).
This was absolutely inadequate to meet their new service. Since 752's were much cheaper than 772's or 763's, they decided to put the 752's to use on TATL lines.
Now, I understand that there are routes where the 752 makes perfect sense, the "mid-thin" routes such as EWR-EDI.
I also know that CO didn't want to invest heavily in a platform (767) they felt was on its way out.
In the end, they ended up with a BF-equipped fleet in which the 752's composed nearly half the inventory, so, sooner or later, they were forced to assign it to routes where it was at its very operational limits, since the plane had never been originally designed to fly TATL (remember, when the 757 was being designed, there was no ETOPS).