Page 62 - AA 2018_11

going to be deploying them in
different ways,” Toro-Prieto explains.
“They have Qantas mainline, and
they have yet to start to be seeing exactly
what is it that they want to be doing,
but an A321neo flying coast to coast in
Australia is an aircraft that will be doing
very good service,” Toro-Prieto says.
“Feeding into Sydney, Melbourne,
Brisbane, some of the islands from the
Pacific into these three cities, flying from
Australia into areas of South-East Asia,
that’s an aircraft that will have a lot of
potential.”
Indeed, the A321neo’s (and the
NMA’s) true role in our market
may well be to expand operations at
airports outside Sydney or Melbourne, the-market when densification is a Will Boeing’s NMA provide a short-lived high-density version
with Brisbane, Perth, the Gold factor, and indeed the proliferation modern-day 767 replacement? with business class seats that were
Coast, Cairns, Canberra and Darwin of long-haul, low-cost carriers (see boeing premium economy-style recliners
particularly well situated in the range Australian Aviation, October 2018) rather than flat beds.
sweet spot. within the Asia-Pacific region suggests And that lack of premium economy
Yet Airbus is cagey on stating as much. is notable in the context of this middle
publicly the exact range vs passenger class growing in importance and
capacity of the A321neo and the Airbus seems to be waiting to aim the profitability for airlines. Premium
A321LR, somewhat understandably A330 at the MOM from above economy is already the most profitable
in advance of Boeing’s NMA. At a Airbus’s mid-1990s widebody twinjet real estate on the plane, by square
206-passenger capacity, Airbus lists a was never expected to outsell its four- centimetre, and its popularity means
4,000nm range, around the distance engined sister, the A340. Yet it has, that airlines are increasingly installing
between Sydney and Hong Kong. It’s handsomely, and now dominates mid- it even on smaller aircraft.
unclear what assumptions back up range operations on the widebody side What the premium economy trend
that figure, however. of the middle of the market within does is push the size of a middle-of-
On the network carrier side of the Australia, on the triangle trunk routes, market aircraft slightly higher: if four
model, many of the airlines operating on transcontinental services, and to rows of premium economy replace five
at this sort of range will likely operate closer Asian destinations. rows of premium economy, a larger
substantially less dense aircraft: The current engine option (the aircraft is needed to carry the same
premium cabins take up more space, A330ceo) versions come in the number of passengers.
extra-legroom sections are proving original A330-300, ordered by Qantas (On the narrowbody side, too,
popular, and economy seats are as an international aircraft, and the fewer passengers in more spacious
given more pitch. That all means shorter yet longer range A330-200, seating means lighter aircraft with
fewer passengers, which provides a used by Qantas, Virgin Australia and a greater range. See: American Airlines’
correspondingly lighter weight. wide range of other airlines. transcontinental A321, which seats
As an extreme example, the tiny For new engine options (the just 102 passengers in a 3.5-class
French all-business class airline A330neo), Airbus offers what is layout, where the airline focuses on
La Compagnie, which flies the essentially a flat replacement of the premium load and frequency over
3,200nm between secondary airports A330-200 with the A330-800neo, economy capacity.)
of Paris and New York, is replacing its while the A330-300 is succeeded by Interestingly enough, few A330s
74-seater Boeing 757-200 aircraft with the -900neo. The neo has more range operate with a full three-class layout,
76-seater A321neos – and that’s the – 8,150nm for the A330-800neo with Cathay Pacific’s long-haul
base neo, not the LR version with the compared with the 7,300nm for the version – seating 39 in business, 21 in
extra fuel tanks. Clearly, the company’s A330-200 – but both are substantially premium economy and 191 in regular
range, headwind and airport holding more capable than the middle of the economy for a total of 251 – one of the
congestion assumptions for this sort of market demands, as is the size. few exceptions.
lightweight operation are positive. Qantas has three slightly varying ‘A widebody (On the 787-8 side, British Airways’
At the other end of the airline layouts for its refitted A330-200s, seats 35 in a very dense business class,
with either 27 or 28 business class
spectrum sit the numerous low-cost seats and 243 or 224 economy seats, aircraft 25 in premium economy and 154
carriers that have ordered the neo, down the back, totalling 214, while Air
where planning assumptions usually 20 in business and 255 in economy. almost Canada’s seats 20 in business, 21 in
respectively. Virgin Australia seats
include a lower rate of hold luggage premium and 210 in economy, adding
takeup than on legacy airlines, and Neither airline offers premium seems up to 251.)
where the 28in or 29in seat pitch does economy on these aircraft. Once the options in the middle-
Qantas, for its part, has made the
not necessarily lend itself to flights choice to upgauge the middle-of-the- inevitable of-the-market firm up, it seems that
at the eight-hour-plus extreme of the there is space for a rethinking of
middle of the market. market from the Boeing 767-300ER for many the passenger experience that can
At that point, a widebody aircraft aircraft it previously used for short- be offered, whether on a widebody,
range, high-density missions to the
almost seems inevitable for many A330-200, including with a relatively carriers.’ narrowbody or middle-of-market
carriers to approach the middle-of- aircraft.

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