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Old 2nd Nov 2008, 09:55
  #2864 (permalink)  
Donkey497
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Oil Capital of Central Scotland
Age: 57
Posts: 486
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Don't think I'll hold my breath for this one.....

If MOL is really basing his hopes on 380's becoming available & 787's being freed up I reckon he's on to a loser straight away.

There's way too many large legacy carriers already in the queue having made up-front financial commitments, waiting for 380's for any "spare" production which might become available to be snapped up at bargain basement prices. A big issue with this is that many of the large carriers are start-up "State airlines" from relatively cash rich locations such as the Gulf so they're not likely to cancel orders just because load factors might drop for 12-18 months. MOL's only hope in this respect might be the remaining test/development airframes, but IIRC, Airbus are already fairly well advanced on selling the remaining frames on. One other minor point is that I don't recall the airports mentioned in the report as having made any infrastructure pgrades to cope with A380 aircraft.

As for the 787. It still hasn't flown, despite the first flight date being re-scheduled time after time, there's still reports of problems with getting enough materials (bolts etc.) to even think about production ramp-up, let alone full production and on top of it all, Boeing are currently suffering from production floor strikes. Hardly conducive to a step change in production methods and introduction of a major new product stream.

I seriously doubt that there will be a significant number of the traditional transatlantic airframes becoming available, especially the quoted figure of 50 to 60 jumbos, they're simply too valuable on premium routes to go cheaply & they're also in demand for cargo conversion, so I think that's a non-starter. 757's are in short supply, many early airframes are nearing the end of their fatigue lives and the 767 is getting into a similar position, the difference for the 76 is that there appears to be more demand for cargo 76's than cargo 75's.

Whilst it's true that the likes of Continental, Delta, American, BA, Lufty etc. have cut back their transatlantic provision, this is no different from what happened last year, or the year before - it's just the winter seasonal timetable as there's less demand on average to go to cold places when it gets cold & wet here. So I don't see where there's all this extra demand that MOL is hoping to tap into.

To be honest, I'd more expect next gen 737's to be used on the services rather than anything else. They might be small but they should have the range (just)for the routes mentioned especially with a high cost business cabin and a high density steerage cabin (and a tech stop either side of the pond). Let's be honest, MOL has plenty of them available to him just now and more on order - why spend money on someting when you own a usable resource already?

I'll believe that it's serious when it's been running for at least a couple of years, but until then, as far as I'm concerned, it's just another throwaway publicity line.
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