Originally Posted by
P330
Just thought I would share an update here, should anyone care. A month since my question on this and there have been several swaps at Newcastle. Every swap has been for another new build. Even the one based second hand unit swapped for a new. For the last week, 100%, or all 8 of the units were new.
You would have to say then it’s highly likely there is an operational reason for this and Jet2 are purposely allocating new builds to NCL and it isn’t random.
(This excludes the odd sub that flies in to cover a delay, does a couple of runs and then moves on).
The newer aircraft are classed as "SFP" (Short Field Performance). It means they have minor differences such as the order the slats/flaps deploy. As Newcastle's runway can sometimes be performance limiting in certain conditions, using SFP aircraft means they can lift more weight from the same runway that a non-SFP 737 couldn't. Other bases such as Manchester don't have any performance issues so they see a mix of older and newer aircraft.