I posted this a couple of weeks ago before we got hacked so don’t know if anyone responded.
Air 2000 & Monarch (and to some extent TCX) have added A320s to their fleets of late, or even A321s.
Air 2000 for example have just acquired more 757s when relatively recently they acquired A321s, a very similar aircraft. So what is their plan?
TCX for example have just acquired a new A320, but I thought most of the A320s were going into Europe.
There just doesn’t seem to be any clairty on fleet renewal for these airlines – can anyone shed any light?
By: wysiwyg - 17th July 2003 at 05:57
The last 320 (G-TCKE) is UK based and floats (like all our aircraft do) between the 320 bases (LGW, STN and EMA). The ‘bigger picture’ varies according to which way the wind is blowing combined with the angle of the sun! Last week it was ‘lets replace all Airbus with more 757 and 767’, this week it’s ‘let’s leave the fleet exactly as it is’.
By: LGKR - 16th July 2003 at 22:30
As i had mentioned before the hack, I believe that many of the similarities in fleets e.g. 757 AND A321 are down to the mergers and/or takeovers the charter carriers have gone through.
Air 2000 for example acquired the A321 and 767-300 fleets after their parent company First Choice Holidays bought Unijet holidays and hence the two airlines Air 2000 and Leisure International having their operations merged. On a similar note, can anyone shed any light on the rumour that Air 2000 are or were to shortly receive A330 aircraft as a result of their merger with Leisure Intl?
Flying Colours only got A320 and A321 aircraft in the fleet as a result of taking over the ops of Airworld Aviation although this seemed to have worked out well with Flying colours and caledonian (also an A320 operator) merging to create Thomas Cook UK nee JMC Airlines.
Wys, do you know if the newly delivered A320 to Thomas Cook UK went straight to the Belgian arm or was it operating from the likes of MAN or LGW first? Also, do you know what TCX are intending to do with the A330’s? Rumour had it that they’d be going with Condor 763’s operating in their place!?
Anyway, after much digressing and hitting back to the original post I suppose that the airlines, particuarly the charter airlines cant clarify on their fleet plans at all. maybe because of the sheer nature of their business? Monarch, Air 2000 and My Travel all seem to use similar aircraft in tandom with the 757 and A321 operating alongside each other 🙂
cheers,
LGKR
By: wysiwyg - 16th July 2003 at 21:39
The plain fact is that a charter airline really needs a mix of 757 amd A320 in order to achieve the required performance and passenger load carrying requirements which is why everyone except Britannia uses both. Britannia flirted with the 737NG but quicly sent them elsewhere as they weren’t as good as they hoped.
By the way, expect to see Thomas Cook Belgium replace 2 A320s with 2 ex-Condor 757s soon. This is not fleet renewal, just flexibility as I mentioned above.
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July 16, 2003 at 4:58 pm