Mountain Explorer

I'm the same, as a West Coaster, this conversation is moot. I'm very happy to do a long D1 flight on a guaranteed widebody SEA/LAX-AMS followed by a short hop to any city in Europe. On the return, I always overnight in AMS and spend a few hours seeing the city. Beats the 7am flight to AMS anyday.

Rather bummed that SEA-AMS has reverted an A333 next summer tho. I quite prefer the A339

ab2013

I wouldn't read too much into the changes in the schedule that far out in the future. Especially these days.

ab2013

I actually liked the fact that DL operated a second nonstop back to SEA (at least during the summer) that left AMS at around 2:30 PM and arrived at around 4 PM. Made the return journey a lot easier - personally have flown it a few times since moving to Seattle.

Yellowjj

Marketing 101. MIA-EZE is a North-South route, meaning winds are neglible as is ETOPS requirements for extra fuel. Not so for transatlantic/pacific route flows of East-West where headwinds can be a killer and extra fuel is required for ETOPS.

BenA

I picked that one for emphasis because it happened to be the longest, but they also advertise MIA-LHR, which isn't subject to those considerations; that's actually a longer route than ATL-CDG.

Note that ATL-CDG and many other western European routes are under 4000 nautical miles; manufacturers exaggerate for sure, but a 15-20% miss on advertised performance would be quite surprising.

Bottom line, ETOPS shouldn't be a problem for TATL routes. Even the A321LR is certified to fly 4000 nautical miles with 208 passengers under ETOPS-180: https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/pres...-a321neo-.html If the LR, can do it, the XLR absolutely can with plenty of headroom. (And a quick glance at the ETOPS map suggests that ATL-CDG may only need ETOPS-120.)

BenA

Sounds like we're in agreement that western Europe would be the primary destinations for a hypothetical A321XLR fleet. I don't think we'll see ATL-MXP, and Germany could be marginal... but we could easily see ATL-DUB/MAN/BCN/MAD/AGP/LIS. Some of these cities are fairly leisure-heavy and seasonal, and it's not at all hard to imagine an A321XLR hauling vacationers from the UK to Disney via ATL.

ethernal

ATL-CDG is definitely doable in a low density config. Anything beyond that would be a stretch in the winter (summer? definitely doable to push the envelope for seasonal routes).

The bigger issue still comes down to.. does Delta want an XLR subfleet? They are definitely going to have to do a low-density A321 for D1 domestic routes at some point.. but they don't need an XLR for that. Delta is on the record saying they don't like narrowbody long haul economics. They have - compared to many carriers - high labor costs, and a lower pilot-passenger ratio is a competitive disadvantage they will lose every day to a hypothetical LCC P2P long haul player. So unless that changes, the whole point is moot. From what I gather, they'd rather cut a few marginal destinations, put A330s on the rest, tell people to connect in CDG/AMS and call it a day

I think the only thing that would change that - and make a real long-haul XLR fleet actually happen - is if Delta's partners effectively fold as a result of COVID (KLM/AF go through bankruptcy and effectively get bought up by other airlines in piecemeal). I find that highly unlikely though - NL and FR will protect their flag carriers.

cmd320

I tend to disagree. With commercial aircraft, simply because no one is making it doesn't really mean there wouldn't be demand for it. Innovation at Airbus and Boeing has become very slow and we've seen how long it has taken for them to release new models these days. With competition and innovation so severely lacking, there just isn't any capacity for manufactures to develop, and this was even before airlines went into shrink mode.

MSPeconomist

Nonstop from MSP, AMS is just under 4000 miles and CDG is slightly over 4000.

I'd think it would be hard to get customers (especially business travelers) to accept a narrow body aircraft from JFK on major European routes with the exception of those who just buy the cheapest ticket regardless of carrier, routing, etc., namely those who tend to fly LCCs/ULCCs. If a competitor is running a wide body on the route, the heavy competition at JFK will be tough.

A couple years ago on a LIS trip in D1, I took the DL TATL nonstop to or from LIS in one direction and was not happy at all with the 2-2 seating.

ethernal

Aren't we kind of saying the same thing? That a 200-220 seater (especially widebody) isn't going to be developed? The cost to make a plane to fill this niche is huge and the return on it is limited (with the primary market really being TATL - which is a shrinking part of the pie*). The 200-220 seat internationally configured market inherently falls in an efficiency dead-zone (too big for a single-aisle, too small for an efficient widebody) and, therefore, the appeal is very limited. The marginal cost of a 250 seat widebody - both from a fixed cost and marginal cost perspective - is so small as to squeeze out the business case for a 200-220 seat plane. The 250 seat widebody will be 10% more costly to acquire and operate but carry 25% more passengers.

CASM isn't everything, but paying 2.5X more for the seat difference is tough to overcome. It is a very, very thin sliver of routes that would work with a 210 seater at 90% the trip cost of a 250 seater but not the 250 seater itself. That thin sliver of routes just doesn't justify $15B+ for a new plane - period. If this market does come to fruition, it will be a 200 seat (international / 2.5 class) narrowbody off of an existing narrowbody frame (either A321 or the NSA from Boeing).

Boeing spent 5 years trying to make the MOM business case work. It just doesn't. They're eaten from below by "long and big enough narrowbodies" and from above by the 787/330.

* Realize there are potentially some interesting East Coast China-Western Europe routes that may - in the future - become interesting at the 4500-ish nm in-air range.

MSPeconomist

Let's not forget capacity discipline. Unless seats are removed or blocked, a 250 seater will generally command lower fares so you can't just look at the cost side..

Yellowjj

It's not that the manufacturers are lying, it's that when you equip a plane especially a ETOPS required one, range can easily take a 15-20% hit. You only need to look at the US transcons in winter with airlines having to fuel stop, yet the range for these aircraft are well over what is required at manufacturers specs. In DL config with IFE/WiFi/Gallery Ovens/D1 seats/Lifeboats, I could easily see the XLR having about 3700nm of useable range when all is said and done. The next hit will come from the lack of cargo, since the xlr already uses pre-existing space for the fuel tank. Lufthansa has already said, nobody wants to spend 10 hours on a narrowbody TATL; I think that's why a lot of airlines were publicly interested in MOM, but Boeing is still trying to get the numbers to work. A spacious design with a 5000nm range in the 200-250 passenger scope.

ethernal

Typically range for the long-haul configs is actually higher because they are less dense - while there is a little extra weight from ETOPS equipment, it is more than balanced out with a low density config (160 pax vs. 200 pax in a traditional config) as you're losing 4 tons+ of passenger weight. D1 seats weigh a lot, but they weigh a lot less than three passengers (which is about the floor space they take). ETOPS does come into big play for some select routes like West Coast-Hawaii if only because you have to be able to turn around / continue at your longest distance from an airport on one engine at 10,000 feet (which burns a lot more fuel than 2 engines at 35000 feet).

Of course Lufthansa is going to say that- they are a legacy carrier that specializes in stuffing people in big widebodies from their two hubs competing against low-cost carriers who want to start doing narrowbody long-haul. Environmental factors aside (altitude / humidity) I'd much rather sit in an A320 long haul configured with 32-33" seat pitch then a 9-abreast 787 configured with a 31" seat pitch. A slightly lower ceiling doesn't fix 17" wide seats or cramped pitch (realize the seat pitch is airline discretion).

Airlines are 100% interested in MoM. The issue is that Boeing (or Airbus) can't cheaply design a plane to fit this niche economically. If there is a market for 400 frames in the MoM, and fixed development costs are $20B, this means every frame is carrying a $50M development cost (+ interest/cost of capital - so really double that in practice). Think of it this way: that is a pretty huge discount that could be applied to "less fit" planes (A339, 788/789) that would cover the comparative inefficiency.

davedeboston

I think that if the MoM hole does get filled in the next 5 years, it will be from a new variant of a current offering rather than a clean sheet model.
-Boeing could make changes to the cancelled 787-3 design and bring that to market.
-Airbus could potentially build an A322.

I’m sure Boeing and Airbus are super risk averse right now, so smaller scale investments like those are more likely..and probably still not happening anyway

cmd320

Would that be able to take off from a runway shorter than NASA's Shuttle Landing Facility?