upgrading A300

[MichaelNishanian]

I have several high pax, short-haul routes in Europe serviced by Airbus A300s with several flights per day. LFs are in the 90 percentile and RI for all routes are at 100. As the planes age I am considering upgrading to A330s. Is this a good strategy or is there a better one that I haven't considered?

I am concerned that lease rates for the new planes will be considerably higher than the older ones thus reducing income as these routes are served by other airlines.

Thanks in advance

[Curse]

Hello,

the A330 are long-haul aircraft while A300 are short- and middle-haul aircraft, especially the older versions you fly.

You could lease new A300-600 or simply stick to further older ones from the used market. Honestly there is no need to replace A300 just because of their age with another fleetgroup.


Also you run already lots of fleetgroups with few aircraft each. Personally I don't know where you want to go with the two 747-400 you have already on order.

[exchlbg]

I would not use A330 for short-haul routes. Especially with competition frequency is an important factor for success, I would go with smaller, but more planes. These planes need less staff,fuel and turnaround-times so they can fly more often.
Short-hauls for big aircrafts only as a gap-filler for scheduling.

[alexgv1]

I'd say replace them with newer A300s like the -600 or -600R they are quite fuel efficient for the pax they carry. A decent aircraft until 2000 maybe somewhat later. Just be careful of the frequency advantage smaller planes will have against you like exchlbg mentioned. However you have the advantage of lower costs per ASM.

[exchlbg]

I know frequency impact has been tweaked, but we are talking competing short-haul with A300/A330. Widebody preference doesn´t apply here.
Since travelling times on short routes don´t differ much speed doesn´t count either nor seating does. So what´s left is price and frequency.
Curse also mentioned poster is flying too many fleetgroups already. So cleaning this up would be his task in the first place before thinking of adding a new one.

[Curse]

A300 shouldn't be your only short-haul aircraft, but they are a nice addition. Normally you have a big bunch of A300-600(R) for longer routes, but there's nothing wrong to put them on shorter routes, too, especially if you can get cheap A300B2/B4 from the used market.

Of course that's nothing for German or Sweden domestic market, but for inter-European or US, Japanese or Chinese domestic market ithey are fine.


If you add some flights on smaller aircraft, too, there's also no frequency win for your competitor. I usually backup my A300 with 2-3 flights of 737/A320, saving one or two of them and having a good bunch of Business/First Class on the A300.

[exchlbg]

I agree A300 are designed for short/medium haul and of course they can be used with profit. Main problem was the mixture of topics, because original poster wanted to trade them for A330, which we all agree was a bad idea. You are the one who can look into his situation, so you should keep up advising him.