Originally Posted by
The Lev
I don't have any data to back it up, but the XLR is probably $5 to $10 million more expensive than a bog standard 321neo, so when you are buying 30 of them, that adds up to a lot of extra cash if you don't need the range. It would be a bit like forking out an extra $10,000 for the "long range" version of an electric vehicle when you only do city driving.
The XLR with Signature Suite seating will carry less passengers than AC's regular 321's, so unless AC aims to designate certain North American routes as "All Signature", they will be giving up the potential yield of those extra seats when flown within North America.
I might do city driving now. I don't know what I'll be doing in 5 years. $10k now might be cheaper than having to buy a new car if my travel patterns change.
The ability to swap in a XLR for a low load 788 that's gone mechanical has pretty immense value too. I don't know if it's worth $10M, but I don't work in route (or fleet?) planning.
How many times did Adam complain about YYC-IAH diversions? How much does a diversion like that cost AC? It puts the aircraft and crew out of position, it causes misconnects, etc.
But yeah, I don't see this as being very different than operating widebodies on NA flights. If 2 aircraft aren't sufficient for a daily run, and 3 are too many, you need to do something with the aircraft in between. Using 2 XLRs on YYZ-LHR-YYZ-SFO-YYZ might give better utilization than using 1 on YYZ-LHR-YYZ, but also might mean that SFO becomes entirely Signature.