Originally Posted by
ImportViking
Finally able to reply again (really this 5 post per week quota is quite silly)
I think this quota disappears when you have submitted enough posts to reach next level.
Originally Posted by
ImportViking
I can confirm that the rest of the short/medium haul Boeing fleet remains at OSL, and for what I understood, it may take quite some time and effort for SK to get rid of it. According to what I understood, this is apparently preferred by a good part of staff there, as apparently Boeing is highly preferred over Airbus.
For sure it will take a while for SK to get rid of all the B737's. First of all. 21 of the birds are not 15 years yet with 9 being between 5-7 years, so they will most likely stay for another 10-15 years. Secondly SK has only around 50 A320's on orders with 3 already converted to A321LR. With 61 B737's in the fleet, 8 A321's at 16-17 years and 15 A319/A320's at 11-13 years, SK needs to order another 40 birds before all the B737 and the "old" A32x can be replaced.
As I wrote before, I doubt crew wishes had anything to do with OSL being the hub for the remaining B737's. All crew I have talked to over the last couple of years prefer the Airbus's over the B737's. It's more likely that the fuel hungry B737's fits the Norwegian routes better than from ARN or DK.
Originally Posted by
ImportViking
Just a question from my side: if one was to renew a whole short/medium haul fleet, wouldn't it make sense then to order just enough aircraft to actually phase out the whole short/medium haul fleet that should be phased out instead of keeping a bit of the old fleet in a specific hub for whatever reason?
When you order short/medium haul aircraft's you need to look at your whole fleet for this segment. As stated above, SK has a number of A32x's which are close to retirement. In total SK would have to order around 90 A320's in order to replace all the B737's and aging A32x's. With about 15 B737's being younger than the youngest of the "old" A32x's there is enough birds to keep a critical mass if consolidated in one hub. As long as you can keep the critical mass, there is no issue in keeping a model. Add to that, that the price SK will get for a 10 year old B737 isn't high compared to the cost of running it another 10 years together with another 10-15 B737's.
Doing a gradual refresh of the fleet as SK does, means they can switch models at fairly low costs should one of the manufacturers come up with a unique new model. If the issues has been solve and reputation restored, I wouldn't be surprised if SK announces they will buy a bunch of B737-max in 5 years time. Also having different models in their fleet, means the impact of a grounding like the B737-MAX will hit less hard.