Hi all,
The B737 classics have a significant maintenance burden so the benefits of having a smaller aircraft could be wiped out by the additional maintenance costs. Added to this, EIN's adoption of the A321 in the late 90's would have resulted in split crews and also having to hold parts etc. to service two separate fleets.
While LH use 737 classics on short haul routes, they also have a significant number of the A320 family. The 737's have a high maintenance equirement and based on LH's outstanding orders for A319/320/321 aircraft, we could well see the 737 classics depart the fleet in the not too distant future.
With regard to acquiring a lower capacity aircraft there's a number of things to consider: -
1. How do they finance them? (Recently an issue which saw the A330 deliveries pushed out). Even leasing the aircraft will have an impact on the balance sheet.
2. Can they downsize the A320 fleet sufficiently and quickly enough to not end up with even more additional capacity? Early lease termination would bring significant penalties and selling the a/c they own would return lower values due to the amount of A/C available.
3. Unless it's an A318/319 aircraft, then there's significant capital expenditure in terms of spare parts purchase, crew training and maintenance crew training....again another cash impact on the balance sheet.
At the moment, I think EIN would be mad to start down this route. They need to stabilise with the current fleet and take a strategic view of what they want the airline to look like in 10 - 20 years. Once they've done this, then it's time to look at what fleet they need to realise that vision.
Just my two cents...
P2C