Originally Posted by nycden
This may be a dumb question, but why does CO (or airlines in general) rotate planes versus using the same plane on the same routes?
CO's 777 flights vary a lot in lengths. Some European roundtrips can be done in about 16-18 hours, like EWR-LGW; while flights to NRT will take about 27 hours to turn around. Rotating the planes is the only sensible way to schedule these flights to make the most of them.
And then there's the EWR-HKG flight. A 777 is left in HKG for about 16 hours on the ground after each flight. CO has a contract with HAECO, the local maintenance firm, to service the 777 there.