New high capacity airplanes

Quote: Nareed

I wonder if an A322 is a good idea for anyone.

It may not be possible to stretch the design another 20'.
A319neo (111 ft)
A320neo (123 ft 3 in)
A321neo (146 ft)

But my point is that an A321neo costs US$127 million and as of 30 November 2017 has 1,496 orders.

For that you can get 39 rows of 6 across where 39*6=234. Spirit airlines subtracts 6 seats to give two rows of big seats and two seats for flight attendants for 228 seats in basically a single class configuration

If the B797 has one of two possible configurations
39 rows * 7 across =273 seats
34 rows * 8 across =272 seats
and it costs an extra $100 million and has to deal with greater wind area.
It is also expected to have an extra 1000-1200 nmi of range

I just don't see what the big attraction is that the B797 is going to outsell A321neo by more than double.

They are talking about deliveries for B797 in 2027. So it remains to be seen if Airbus is going to counter in the next decade.

The USA airlines have already placed firm orders for 276 A321neos which are likely to grow in the next decade.

100 | 23 January 2013 American Airlines
100 | 14 December 2017 Delta Air Lines
60 | 27 October 2011 JetBlue
16 | 25 March 2013 Hawaiian Airlines

I don't think the B757 and B767 are going to last 10 more years for USA fleets.


But what really matters in ten years is sales inside the circle which is less than 5000 nmi in diameter where half the world lives.

Quote: Pacomartin

It may not be possible to stretch the design another 20'.

I thought an A322 would be a chronic tail-striker.

Quote:

I just don't see what the big attraction is that the B797 is going to outsell A321neo by more than double.

It depends what plane Boeing spits out. Oil won't remain low forever. The increased drag can perhaps be made up with a lighter design using composites. A superior passenger experience could help, but not as much as one would hope.

Consider spending 6 hours inside a narrow body. Even in a fully padded seat with decent leg room, you're going to wind up exhausted. On a wide body you can at least move around a bit, and find places to hang out by the lavatories and galleys. But for such things to have much of an impact, people need to start caring about what plane they fly in (people other than aviation enthusiasts).

That said, my worst flight ever was on a wide body. But that's a different story.

Finally, after 11 years someone is flying the A380 from NYC to London.

As you may know, Singapore Airlines was forced by Airbus to exercise their old option to purchase 5 more A380s in exchange for taking back the 5 A340s in 2013. Singapore Airlines has retired the original five A380s and replaced them with new ones. One was dismembered for parts, three are in storage, and one was sold to Air Malta who is making it available for wet lease.

For the next three weeks Norwegian has wet leased the jet to run from Gatwick to NYC. Norwegian normally flies Dreamliners, but because of blade issues with the Rolls Royce engines they have been taken out of service.



The US airlines have all outfitted their Dreamliners with General Electric GEnx engines which do not have a problem.

The number of fatal accidents involving commercial jets keeps falling year after year. Given the jump in number of air passengers around the world from roughly 1.5 billion when the A380 was first developed to 4.1 billion last year, it's amazing that a market for a larger jet has not appeared.