Airbus A321 neo LR- can I call you UBER?

Airlines operating long-haul routes can be divided into two categories.

First one represented by experienced companies such as Lufthansa, British Airways, Air France or KLM is the group of traditional carriers, which fly overseas on wide-bodies aircrafts- quite conservative, hub-and-spoke system, legacy carriers. They can be compared to traditional yellow cap in New York or the black one in London.

Second group consists of young and fresh airlines, such as Norwegian, Primera, WOW or potentially Jet Blue. They do not need extensive feeding system, sophisticated in-flight entertainment or menu designed by a Michelin star chef, as they are low-cost carriers. They focus on direct point-to-point major-to-major or (like Norwegian) major-to-secondary airports routes on the other side of the Atlantic. They, on the other hand, represent modern, based on technology UBER’s way of doing business. And just like UBER needed tools for its revolution, the airlines need their own. Is it going to be a modernised version of A321 from Toulouse?

As Airbus claims, long-version of their well-known aircraft will have the range as long as 7.400 kilometres. According to Great Circle Mapper the distance from New York JFK to Paris CDG, London LHR and Prague PRG is 5.849 km, 5.554 km and 6.569 km respectively. Of course safety regulations may not allow to fly to destinations at the edge of maximum range, but those, which are not so far away, are on the radar of airlines network development divisions. As far as the range in concerned, carriers can rely on A321 neo LR. But what about other features? Let’s exam some of them.

1) Flight time vs. comfort.

For some passengers the perspective of spending more than two hours in a narrow-body aircraft is a nightmare, due to the limited legroom. According to SeatGuru standard legroom in Ryanair 737-800 is up to 30 inches (76.2 cm), in Norwegian 737-800 29-31 inches and in Lufthansa A321 is exactly 30 inches. Taking a closer look at wide-body planes interesting thing can be seen: Lufthansa A380 economy seats have 31 inches of legroom, KLM 787 economy seats also 31 inches and British Airways A380 economy seats, surprisingly, 31 inches. Seems like the comfort cannot be longer an excuse while choosing the carrier as the seats in economy class do not differ much between traditional grandfathers and revolutionary grandsons. Naturally, wide-body jets have two aisles, which may give some passengers the feeling of better comfort. However, having the middle seat in a central row is just as uncomfortable as the middle one in a narrow-body.

2) In-flight entertainment.

Maybe IFE is the very last ‘magic of flying’, which still remains from good old times, when air travel was not just a means of transport, but a luxury journey? Well, the block buster just realised in the cinema watched 30.000 feet above sea level, followed by tomato juice might be a great experience. But is it really irreplaceable? No, as long as passengers have their own tablets, smartphones or computers with the membership of Netflix, Showmax or Prime Video. They can easily download movies or TV shows and watch them on their own devices. Simple and as cheap as few euros per month with comparable offer.

3) Catering.

One of the obvious feature of low-cost flights in the lack of mandatory catering. Passengers have an option to purchase meals while booking a ticket or later on board, however, the price in not included in the total price of the ticket. As a result, the sum is lower than in legacy carrier, as one of the element is excluded. The lunch may not be expensive, but is it worth it? It is not as important as the passengers cannot have an eight hours long flight without it, mostly because they can buy something at the airport and take away or, if the regulations allow, get their own means on board. Is it embarrassing? As long as it is not garlic with onions it is fine.

Coming back to the main topic, is A321 neo LR something that carriers need? If they want to explore the market of long-haul operations on a massive scale using smaller aircrafts, which are much easier to fulfil, yes is being the answer. Airbus gives the possibility to operate long distance routes using aircraft with around 240 seats in one class configuration and the carriers ‘just’ need to find the routes, which can be operated by it without feeding flights and sell tickets on reasonable price. There are some city pairs, where the traffic is so intense that the majority of it is a local one, such as main city on US East Coast and Western and Central Europe capitals.

Modern technology, the Internet, smartphones and globalisation might be a threat of traditional, conservative airlines and the way they see and do business. Newcomers, airlines which focus on millennials tend to use those technologies and offer a simple service of a A-to-B flight, which is what they want. Aircrafts such as A321 neo LR and 737 MAX are like private cars for UBER- they allow them to operate, not only on regional or intracontinental flights, but also on long-haul one. Also, the modern devices give are the substitutes of all those great experience, which can be found on board of full service network carriers.

Is it the end of legacy carriers? Not necessarily. The market growth so rapidly in recent years, that there might a space for everybody. However, it might be the end of local traffic for FSNC and they will need to spread their penetration into secondary markets in order to find and passengers and feed by them their wide-body planes such as A380 and 777. The best exam will come together with economic crisis and we will see which strategy is better- local traffic only or maybe the mix of local, behind and beyond one.

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