I don’t have any safety fears wrt the B737 Max but there are a few things in favour of the A320 series and the big one is the cabin width. For pax, the middle seat on a B737 is not a nice place to be whereas the extra 50mm seat width on the A320 is reasonably comfortable. Airline management are continually looking at passenger feedback and this issue always comes up.
Additionally, Joyce has stated that some of the A321 LR’s & XLR’s that have been ordered could end up in mainline, effectively filling a mid sized seating & range capacity that has been missing since the B767 was retired. Management have been after an aircraft to fit between the B737-800 & the A330-200 for quite some time and this is the only aircraft available now that meets this requirement. If these are flown by mainline domestic crew then it would make sense to replace the B737-800’s with a mix of A320 & A321’s thus having a single endorsement for the domestic pilots (after the B737 has been completely replaced which will take many years due to the varying ages of that fleet).
The cost of maintenance and spare parts inventory would be lower for the A320/321 as it would be able to be pooled with the large Jetstar fleet’s needs. You could also surmise that EFA fleet could end up operating a larger A321P2F fleet (replacing the elderly B737 freighters) which would also benefit from lower maintenance/spares costs.
The A320/321 has containerised baggage handling which assists greatly in minimising turn around times as well as keeping bags dry in wet weather & permitting freight to be carried more regularly. Currently, freight will not be carried on the B737’s if there is a risk that the time to load it manually will cause the turn around time to be exceeded.
Basically, the A320 is superior to the B737 in so many areas that I think it’s the obvious choice for Qantas. Boeing should have designed a brand new aircraft instead of developing the Max as there is nothing they can do with such an old fuselage design to make it a better aircraft than their rival’s.
As my handle indicates, I am firmly entrenched in the pro Boeing lobby but, after analysing all the information, there’s no way that I think the B737 Max would be the right aircraft for Qantas.