Originally Posted by
Papa2Charlie
I think the leasing of the A319's is the path of least resistance to allow EI better manage capacity on certain routes. I'm not overly familiar with the A/C but I'm lead to believe it's not the most favoured of A/C at the moment due to having very similar maintenace costs to the A320.
Well, the
A318 is a known dog (only 54 in service) but there are over 1,200 A319s currently flying, so "not the most favoured" is a relative term!
One of the A319's key selling points is the commonality with the A320, so I wouldn't expect much difference in maintenance costs between the types; on the other hand, I'd expect considerable savings (compared to geting a different aircraft entirely) from not having to stock two sets of spares for everything.