Why only the A319. What's so special about this bird?

[bleedair87]

Hi folks!

I need your professional help.

Why do airlines like Easyjet and Germanwings etc. only use the A319. They could also use the A320 and A321, couldn't they? So what's so special about it? Is it the younger development age? Or is it the smaller airplane and therefore increased range?

I would very much appreciate to get some infomation.

Refards,

bleedair

[Sky Wave]

Easyjet do have A320's.

A319's are easier to fill than A320's

319's cost less than 320's to purchase and due to the fact that they are lighter they burn less fuel for the same air distance.

There's no point in buying a 180 seat 320 if you are going to struggle to fill it. Far better to get a cheaper 319 and fill it up every trip.

I'm not sure how many seats the Germanwings 319's have but EZY messed up by putting too many seats in their 319's. If they'd of stuck with 150 seats they would also have been able to make huge savings as you only require 3 cabin crew on 150 seat aircraft. They've got a procedure for reducing the number of seats but it seems to cause more trouble than it's worth.

SW

[TopBunk]

Also interchangeability.

If you always fly one type, then any aircraft can fly any route with no issues.

If you fly more than one type with different seating capacities, you have to (1) allocate them to routes and (2) sell the seats.

If then an aircraft is sick you may not have an aircraft large enough to seat the booked passengers. You then have to get into rebooking or denied boarding compensation etc.

It just keeps things simpler.

btw, you could also include RYR with the 737-800.

All are based on the original SWA model in the USA.

[dany4kin]

I'm sure somebody more knowledgable than myself could comment further but I'm pretty sure that Easy's 319's are not all EXACTLY the same - I believe some have a higher gross weight limit or something and typically tend to be used on longer routes I believe? The A320/21's they have were 'inherited' from GB Airways I think - not sure if EasyJet would actually have bought them if that hadn't occurred and would surely have preferred greater fleet commonality? (ignoring the common type rating aspect and focusing more on the different configs/fuel burns etc.)

Same story with FR too; some of their 800's have higher weight limits than others (66.9 to 74.9 I believe?) Memory fails me as to what that weight is, Max TakeOff Weight I think...?

At the risk of slight thread drift isn't that 3 crew requirement thing a bit of an issue with the 737-900 too? With 4 crew the max pax capacity on a 73 is 189, the 737-900 surely has room for more seats but would need an extra crew member... Does the 900 have something else going for it?! Surely the cost of an extra crew member would not be made up by the (assumingly small) number of extra seats?

[Sky Wave]

dany

Easyjet 319's have three different declared MTOW's

64t, 66t or 68t

These are declared MTOW's and are used to take advantage of lower airspace charges. They often change the declared weights of the aircraft so that the entire fleet gets a fair share of short hops and long sectors. Just recently they increased a number of 64t to 68t in order to cope with the disruption that was being experienced.

It takes a while to sort the paperwork out to change the weight and cannot just be done at the drop of a hat. Therefore they do suffer with the problem of needing a 68t aircraft and only having a 64t available.

SW

[Sky Wave]

They inherited the GB A320's and then realised how much money can be made when you have a captive audience for 5 hours. That's a lot of cups of coffee. They then changed a number of 319 orders to 320's. They currently have around 20 CFM A320's with more to come.

Only 1 ex GB aircraft is now left in the fleet, G-TTOJ and that will be going very soon.

SW

[dany4kin]

Looks like the 1st ten words of my post were correct!

Thanks for that info, interesting reading.

[Sky Wave]

Also I can't really speak about 737-800 & 900's, however what I can tell you is that you need 1 cabin crew member per 50 passengers.

I believe Ryanair 737-800's have 189 passengers, hence 4 cabin crew.

From doing a bit of searching it looks like the 737-900 also has 189 seats but it has a much longer range, hence the benefit for some operators.

SW

[dany4kin]

Thanks Skywave, I assumed Boeing knew their stuff!

[Mr @ Spotty M]

Sorry "Sky Wave" slightly duff info.
It is the B737-900ER which has the longer range and can carry up to 215 pax in a one class cabin.:ok:

[Mr @ Spotty M]

It can not be done with the drop of a hat because the max take-off weight is what your charges are based on.
Landing fees and the like are charged this way, which is why aircraft are deliberately operated at lower weights if you can get away with it.

[Sky Wave]

ASFKAP

How so...?

I have no idea, but certainly EZY are not able to do it, and believe me they would if they could.

SW