American Airlines to End MIA-SDQ Airbus 300

[Porfio_Rubirosa]

Cargo considerations

I always understood that one reason for the A300 JFK-SDQ was the greater cargo capacity. So either a reduced cargo business or fleet consolidation considerations (or both) are conspiring against the A300 and other twin aisles.

If you fly AA, you may learn to miss the A300 when you're packed like a sardine into seat 39B on a 757 and it takes half an hour to deplane down the single aisle.

 

[badpiece33]

If you fly AA, you may learn to miss the A300 when you're packed like a sardine into seat 39B on a 757 and it takes half an hour to deplane down the single aisle.

Rather be safely packed in than, reciting the Rosary while we return to airport for emergency landing

 

[sweetdbt]

It was always my understanding that the A300 had been used for DR routes to accomodate the Dominican proclivity for traveling with everything but the kitchen sink. It seems that their high cost of operation has now superceded this.

 

[ExtremeR]

The A300 with its 15,000 lbs per hour fuel flow is an extremely inefficient aircraft to operate nowadays, not to mention how uncomfortable those planes were, you would think it would shatter into pieces in midflight. The A300 still have a life ahead as a cargo carrier as it have an extremely huge cargo capabilities.

The 767 only consumes 10,000 lbs per hour of fuel, so I believe it would get better savings in the overly populated SDQ-JFK route.

 

[edm7583]

The 767-300 will probably only be used on routes where there is a big cargo market. Keep in mind that the 763 carries only 37 more passengers than the 757, but burns a lot more fuel. (I personally would prefer to fly on the 767. The 2-3-2 layout in coach means that the plane has to be over 80% full before anyone gets a middle seat. But from the airline's viewpoint of economics, the 757 is far more desirable for routes where most revenue comes from passengers and only a small amount from cargo.) JFK-PUJ is a 757. While JFK-SDQ and JFK-STI will go to 767-300 (for now, but I can see AA downgrading this to 757 if cargo revenue dries up).

Also keep in mind that AA has a relatively large supply of 757's, 124 of them (lots of ex-TWA aircraft) and relatively few 767-300's (58), which are spread fairly thin doing mostly Europe and South America routes. All the more reason that they will only keep the 767 on the DR routes as long as the economics justify it.

And since fuel is definitely going to shoot up in the long term, the smaller and more efficient the better. In fact the higher fuel gets, the more of a competitive advantage an airline with smaller,newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft will have. (Think JetBlue, which is planning on returning to profitability this year.)