spin88

Cool to know. I did not know they had placed their first A321neo into operation. (they have a second that was just delivered, is that in operation yet?) Any idea what routes they are flying it on? I would like to fly it.

LASUA1K

Fly the A321 back to back with a 739 and tell me which one you prefer. It really isn't even close. (In my opinion)

cplush

inauguaral was 5/31 its on SFO-DCA, they get another soonish that'll be on SFO-JFK i believe. its a sweet ride, i was on the inaugural. little light on F (2 rows), not sure if that was a VA thing as it was my first time on them.

cplush

Always groan when i see that 738 on aa, nothing like having nonstop shoulder contact with a stranger for 5-6 hrs

spin88

It is a VX thing, since they use the planes on much less elite heavy routes. not surprised it is SFO-DCA, that flight is ALWAYS full, and F is often quite expensive.

fly18725

The 737 is cost advantage is also helped by less maintenance (fewer C and D checks) than the A320. The 737 is also more reliable.

Nevertheless, it is 6" narrower than the A320 at seat level, which destroys airlines' revenue and reputations.

notquiteaff

I am curious how that is measured (and who measured it).

Newman55

And yet those silly airlines keep buying the thing in droves. Don't they know it's destroying their reputation?

Half an inch may be noticeable by a couple of FTers, but most people don't notice and the airline doesn't really care about the few plebs do.

fly18725

It is measured by cancellation or maintenance related delay. The airlines provide the data to Airbus amd Boeing. There is also reporting to FAA.

A320 is 99.4% reliable and the 737 is 99.7%.

notquiteaff

How does that say anything about the aircraft reliability, though? Take old United as an example: they developed a reputation for "running down" their fleet. So the numbers they reported aren't necessarily an assessment of the "natural" reliability of their airframes, but rather a reflection of their particular processes and prolicies and the delays and cancellations they cause.

Another way to look at it - both CO and UA were operating 757 aircraft. Did they report the same numbers? LH and UA are both operating 747-400 aircraft. Do they report more or less identical reliability?

spin88

No doubt that is why the A321neo has outsold the Max-9 by 1416 to 182. (and 100 of the Boeing Orders are arguably a vaper-order... ).

Or the 320neo has outsold the Max-8 by 3587 to 1985.

Just keep thinking it does not matter.....

Newman55

Actually the 320 has outsold the Max-8 by 3312 to 2654 with a 9 month head start. Not that it really matters... these sales campaigns are determined on a lot of factors. The most important factor is how much money the plane will make the airline with their specific network.

If there was any data showing that a half inch of seat room was causing the airlines to lose revenue, the plane would have stopped selling way back in the 90s.

Productivity

Clearly it's not reputation destroying, as far as I can tell, for the average consumer very little is reputation destroying - if airlines can get away with what they did to 777s on 10+ hour segments, an inch on a medium haul narrow body will hardly matter.

I think a head start is irrelevant - these are paper orders for a long way down the road. If Boeing had a more competitive product, they would have caught up on orders simply because Airbus can't crank out enough NEOs (Boeing can't crank out enough MAX's either assuming it was winning more orders but it isn't). They haven't caught up and I believe on average Airbus is still winning far more orders than Boeing for the narrowbodys. That would indicate to me that something in the total package (acquisition cost, operating costs) is distinctly favouring Airbus.

Quite frankly I think Boeing have done wonders with the 737 frame. It's amazing how long they've kept it flying and updated, but it's time for a bottoms up redesign. Sadly it remains to be seen if Boeing actually still has the design resources for that, given the eating out of their core teams + the 787 debacle. For all Airbus fans, this is not a good thing no matter how you look at it. Competition moves the industry in the right direction and Boeing struggling is not helping any of us.

emcampbe

While many on FT may pick flights based on the aircraft that is flying, guaranteed the average passenger doesn't know the difference between a 320 and 737, and many don't even know once they are on it. Much less specifically pick a departure because its on one vs. the other. As shown in some of the other threads, like the BE ones, most are picking based solely on price, and somewhat schedule (again, FT is an exception).

I agree the 320 is a much better cabin for the passenger than the 737.

Confused about the 737 needing fewer C and D checks. Why is that?

halls120

Same here.