Originally Posted by
simons1
Not necessarily. I didn't mention extra aircraft, just that an airline operating a younger more fuel efficient fleet might have higher reliability and lower costs than one operating a fleet including old aircraft.
Newer does not necessarily mean better reliability though. Issues like the 787 can and do happen, and can have both direct and indirect effects (e.g. aircraft shortage which reduces spare capacity for substitution, or issues associated with higher utilisation, deployment on certain routes that may have an impact on other aspects of operations), and even availability of spares can be an issue.
Aircraft and associated costing is pretty complex and interesting.