Originally Posted by
aussieflyboy
Any truth to the rumour that QF Pilots were told at a recent planning presentation that the expectation is that Mainline domestic will reduce to 50 A321s (down from 75 odd 737s) and NJS (or other entity) will increase to 50ish A220s?
It’s a fleet replacement project that will go for another 12 years. Management generally aren’t looking at numbers that far in advance and will adapt as necessary (a year or two out). I would highly doubt they’ve arrived at a firm 50/50 split today, and even if they had there’s no ‘planning presentation’ where they would openly tell crew about it.
But even with that the combined A220/A321 total order is 134 aircraft, so there are another 34 aircraft to be accounted for. Split evenly that adds up to 67 A321s, which is similar to the 75 737s atm.
Seat capacity, 75x 738 and 20x 717 adds up to just shy of what 50 321 and 50 220 will give you, however passenger numbers are forecast to rise by about 3.5% per year for the next 10+ years so 50/50 won’t be enough to cater for the expected rise in numbers, however getting the extra 34 options (17 321s and 17 A220s) roughly will. So IMO there’ll definitely have to be more than 50 321s coming in the long run.
What the A321 will be doing is more overnight flying to Asia, at the time the current 737 fleet is mostly sitting idle. So even a lesser number of 321s can mean the same amount of crew required.