On bad days any flights over 4.5 hours will struggle. We will definitely need to have a new sharkletted one because a 15 year old one wont do it without an even bigger hit.
They wouldn't have switched like this if it was never gonna get off the runway with more than 20 people on, but I think that bringing them straight in like this could perhaps be the wrong decision. I think they should have tried 1 A320, 1 A321, 1 757 first, but. I'm sure they know what they're doing. I hope the A321NEO is built with 757-esque overpoweredness.
The A321 has loads of problems. Engine power, although the most powerful in the family render it relatively underpowered, wings are the same as the rest of the family and thus a bit stubby. Also it's (obviously) a bigger plane, which due to it's length and the same landing gear means a shallower rate of climb during the first few hundred feet which, with a hill at the end of the runway isn't ideal.
I like it when A/C use all of the runway though so I don't mind
but I hope we get those 2 extra LS 757's to compensate.