Originally Posted by
JimEddie
Out of interest, how many routes does BA put a 747 on where the demand can't fill a 747?
It is in interesting question because to some extent it depends on what you mean......
The 747-400's have a very large Y cabin and many Premium Heavy routes just never fill the 185-235 Y (depending on Mid-J or Hi-J) seats and the driver is the W and J cabins which are full. This is the problem that BA has to some extent with an A380 - yes you get 97 J seats and 55 W but you get 303 Y seats which on many of the trunk routes you will just never, ever need....
The 787-8 has 35J/25W/154Y. The 787-9 is 6m longer. Assuming that you are going to put F into these in some form you would get a few F seats (almost certainly not 14) and could uplift the J and W cabins by a row each so J43 and W32. All of a sudden not that far off a Mid-J 747-400 with 52J and 36W.... F is not really that relevant as it only makes money on a few routes from what I hear so the real focus is J and W. Reducing the Y cabin where it is simply not needed is a real bonus as well.
We will I am sure start to see some major changes on how the fleet is used in 2014 as we get up to 8 A380's, 8 787-8's, 10 777-300's and possibly some 787-9's. I am certain that LAX and HKG are showing what the plan is here and that is to get the 747-400's off the longer routes where they really are just fuel guzzlers compared to the newer fleet members. I would not be surprised if the US West Coast, South Africa, South America and South East Asia are early targets for 747-400 free services........ I think that we will see the 747-400 progressively confined to the Middle East and Indian Subcontinent routes as the distances are smaller and therefore the fuel burn is less of a consideration compared to the 6,000+ mile runs...
FD.