I am sure that low cost long-haul could work but you need a certain size to achieve that. If you only have two aircraft and three routes then you can't afford to have a standby aircraft to cover unserviceability and maintenance.
It also becomes difficult to roster rotations efficiently, and you end up with long periods on the ground. A large airline can use early morning arrivals from the far east to go out straight away to the states, or afternoon arrivals from the east to do the overnight trips to South Africa etc.It is very expensive to do check in, handling, engineering etc. if you only have a couple of departures a day spaced out by nine or ten hours, and sales, advertising, even catering need volume to get the best price.
I suspect if you had at least half a dozen aircraft then it could work, but not with fewer.
Last edited by Seat1APlease; 11th Apr 2008 at 17:46.