Originally Posted by
morges1
Bizarre, that LU (NF) was supposed to go in Oct 15 and LW (OF) this month - as bad as the LE v LF conundrum.
Moreover, if LF had stayed at Cardiff a few more days or LU had retired a few days earlier, LF could have had LU's NF seats!!!
I'm not sure that I'd go as far as "bizarre". We don't have access to important information like the maintenance schedules and what work would be required to keep any particular aircraft flying for the next month, three months, six months etc. It could be that with work having been done earlier in the year on both LE and LF, some work could be saved by retiring LU one year earlier than originally planned. The original plan pre-dated LL's accident, so everything must be subject to change.
As for LF taking LU's NF cabin, they are both mid-J aircraft, so it may well have been that mid-J routes could not have tolerated both LF and LU being out of service at the same time. So could LF's C-check (or whatever) have been deferred until after the NF cabin was removed from LU? And could mid-J routes have coped with LU being withdrawn now, and then LF later being out of service for some time for the re-fit? Possibly not - but we can't know one way or the other.