Originally Posted by
ProPax
I recently read an article somewhere (I think it was part of the 50th Airbus anniversary at Flight Global) and I read this:
"While the A300B, which first flew in 1972, and its followers, the A300-600 and A310, could not compete in the long-haul market with [the] US types, their capacity and reliability made them strong-sellers in the short- and medium-haul market."
The airplanes mentioned had the range of 9600km (A310) and 7500km (A300-600). I checked Boeing 747-100 specifications and it turned out it only had the range of 8500km, actually a thousand less than A310.
So my question is, what was considered "long-haul" in the 70s? And while we're on it, what do you, the people of PPRUNE, consider long-haul today? Where was (and is now) the watershed between short-haul, medium-haul, long-haul, ultra-long-haul? How and when did that change happen... if it did?
In the 1970's long haul routes were still the domain of 707-320B/C's, plus the DC-8 super sixty series. Only these types could manage UK/Europe - USA West Coast usually non-stop.
The VC-10 tended to have to stop quite often for a drink flying for BOAC BUA/BCAL - she served down to Santiago until BCAL decided the 707C was the way to go.
At the time all the routes from UK down to South and East Africa stopped on the way - SAA in Europe then again in Sal island for fuel, and the other carriers like BOAC LH KL and AZ also stopped say on the NBO/JNB runs.
Nothing was non-stop at that time going down that way - or to the Far East and Australasia - again stops were made going there in Europe, then in the Middle East Iran India Burma for HKG SIN BKK KUL which were the norm...
1971-1972 enter the 747-100 - but she was not able to do what a 707C or DC-8-62/63 could do ie; LHR-LAX non-stop -
The 741 was USA East Coast only, she also could not do LHR-NBO non-stop either.
Fast forward 10 years and the BA 747-236 with RR engines was then able to do the West Coast or NBO non-stop.
With the earlier versions of the 747-200B bought by SAA QF SQ and others we started to see more non-stop longer hauls achievable by mid-late 1970's.
Also in 1972 we saw the DC-10 and L1011 enter service - both of these were short-mid haul only - The exception being the long range DC-10 30 (and -20) which was able to do what a DC-8 62/63 could do.
Almost all of the European carriers (and ANZ who flew the LHR- LAX for BA) ordered the DC-10 30.
OK - same time enters Airbus with the Bus-Stop jet A300B - the initial design was only a short haul people mover a/c at the time, until the A310 came along which was designed for longer thin routes (rather like the 787-8 of today)
The A310 was further developed in to the -300 series with a much longer range.
Only when the A300-600R in the early 1990's (with ETOPS developments saw the series used on the Transatlantic for instance) and Olympic used them from ATH to NBO and JNB replacing the 747.
Today -
Short haul is possibly defined where a crew can operate there and back in a day -
just my opinion
For UK charter airlines this is to the Med, Canaries, Cyprus and the Greek Islands.
Medium haul is say LHR-DXB, AUH
Long haul is LHR-NYC LAX SFO NBO JNB CPT etc
In the early 1970's - (from the UK non-stop)
short haul was Europe down to the Med
medium haul was the Canaries Greece Tel Aviv Cyprus Egypt etc
long haul was probably defined as BAH DXB NYC YUL YYZ Caribbean - remember that NBO was still then not possible non-stop with a wide body, nor was the USA west coast until the DC-10 30 and the 747-200B.
ULR did not exist in the last century (ULR today defined by needing 4 pilots usually, and well over a 12 hours FT) but Oz and NZ would be a very long haul flight with many stops back in those days