Narrowbodies on long haul flights

Preston, you are absolutely spot on. Of course the PR department of any airline is going to say that seats are being removed for passenger comfort, whereas the truth is that if they didn’t remove the extra seats you’d all be swimming the last 500 miles!!!

right, just to clear it up once and for all… JFK to DUB is 3170 Miles, and EWR to LAX is 2450 Miles. Now, unless Shannon is 700 Miles closer to New York than Dublin (allowing for the fact that EWR and JFK are less than 20 Miles apart), SNN is not closer to JFK than LAX is.

QED.

Schluss, aus, ende! ….. LMAO

right, just to clear it up once and for all… JFK to DUB is 3170 Miles, and EWR to LAX is 2450 Miles. Now, unless Shannon is 700 Miles closer to New York than Dublin (allowing for the fact that EWR and JFK are less than 20 Miles apart), SNN is not closer to JFK than LAX is.

QED.

Well, today Continental opened their new Newark-Oslo route with the 757… but narrowbodies on long routes aren’t exactly unusual in Scandinavia.

Historically, Sterling Airways until 1991 or so flew 727s on their Copenhagen-Toronto route. It was then changed to 757 and IIRC operated until they went bankrupt in 1993. Sterling also flew Caravelles and 727s from Sweden and Denmark to Ceylon/Sri Lanka, and 727s to Phuket in the late 80s. Obviously not nonstop, but via Tashkent. Keep in mind that Sterling’s 727s were the heaviest threeholers around, with a MTOW of some 100 tons if I’m not mistaken. They were tailor made for their Stockholm/Copenhagen-Las Palmas run, 6 hours with 189 passengers…

Transwede flew MD-83s and MD-87s from Stockholm to Miami in the late 80s. Via Keflavik and Gander.

Conair of Scandinavia (merged with Scanair to form Premiair in 1993) flew A320s to Fort Lauderdale and some other destinations far away.

This went on until the Scandinavian charter carriers went nuts and bought huge amounts of DC-10s and L-1011s… and several of them didn’t exist much longer after that.

BA are also regularly early into LHR from NY, too… it’s purely reliant on strong tailwinds, though, and is therefore seasonal.

I think Aer Lingus add quite a bit extar onto those time to account for delays.The JFK-DUB flight can sometimes land 45minutes to 1 hour early.

Is that 7 extra rows compared to a 235 seater 752?

They are certainly ‘stretched’ here’s one from NWA I
took with my wife’s camera in Seattle…

http://www1.airpics.com/showimg.php?imgid=55090

There’s a seating plan on their website. I think the stretched version is comparable to the DC8-60 series which seated about 250 if I remember correctly.

Also just remembered that AF and LH (Privatair) use A320/319/737 in all business class configuration on longhaul flights.

Astraeus operate(d)? a weekly service to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. That’s with a 737-700, which has a maximum range of just over 6000 km. I think LGW-Malabo is about 5800 km.

Thomas Cook, have a Seat Pitch of 35″ with leather seats on its two aircraft which are charted for canadian affair, in my opnion they should have this throughout the fleet.

Having 1 or 2 aisles has nothing to do with the pitch.
I remember flying in a 747 with a 31′ pitch : very unconfortable 🙁

Exactly Hand. I really fail to see why people are so worried about a single aisle aircraft on a transatlantic flight. IMO it’s a really good idea as it allows airlines such as CO and AA to operate non stop service from regional airports that otherwise would not have transatlantic links. The 757 is a fantastic aircraft that is ideally suited for these routes.

The other thing to remember is that many routes started by the 757 do get upgraded to a widebodied aircraft once the route is established (the obvious exception being BHX-EWR which is double daily instead).

Or 280 on TCX’s 753s 🙂

Is that 7 extra rows compared to a 235 seater 752?

They are certainly ‘stretched’ here’s one from NWA I
took with my wife’s camera in Seattle…

http://www1.airpics.com/showimg.php?imgid=55090

Future Pilot’s pics (great ones by the way) today of the Continental 757 got me thinking about the use of narrowbodies for long haul. Do the interiors have the same layout and pitch as that of wide body aircraft? I’m just not sure that in addition to sitting on a 31 or 32 inch pitch seat I’d like to be inside a narrowbody for 7 hours +.

Any other companies that employ narrowbodies for crossing the Pond (or other long haul routes)? And has anyone used 737s or A320s other than in business configuration for such long trips (range permitting naturally)?

Having 1 or 2 aisles has nothing to do with the pitch.
I remember flying in a 747 with a 31′ pitch : very unconfortable 🙁

Current Aer Lingus flying times are:

SNN-JFK – 7:20 hrs
JFK-SNN – 6:20 hrs

United list the EWR-LAX route as 5h 50, and LAX-EWR is 5h 10. How does that make Shannon closer to New York than LA? :confused: :rolleyes:

I recall ATA and Canada 3000 used 757’s tansatlantic from BFS. Think when an aircraft went tech there may have been a 727 used once but im not sure.

I thought EWR-LAX was about a 4-5 hour flight and to SNN must be about 7 hours at least ?

Current Aer Lingus flying times are:

SNN-JFK – 7:20 hrs
JFK-SNN – 6:20 hrs

Economy seating on 757s fall into 3 categories;
charter config (Monarch, First Choice etc 228-235seats)
scheduled config (BA, CO etc 160-180 seats)
shuttle config (BA used to run @8 757s with 195 seats)
Whilst the 757 is a great ac, imo it can be a real pain when boarding/disembarking as 200+ passengers have to use 1 aisle.

Or 280 on TCX’s 753s 🙂

FCA (as Air 2000) used the 752 for round the world flights for one tour operator in the mid-1990s, though I’m pretty sure they reconfigured the cabin!

Many moons ago Wardair used a 727 across the pond in the 60’s!

2 hours on a TAP 727 was enough for me back in ’86 😮

Economy seating on 757s fall into 3 categories;
charter config (Monarch, First Choice etc 228-235seats)
scheduled config (BA, CO etc 160-180 seats)
shuttle config (BA used to run @8 757s with 195 seats)
Whilst the 757 is a great ac, imo it can be a real pain when boarding/disembarking as 200+ passengers have to use 1 aisle.

well, its a lot faster if the airlines use the front and back doors for disembarking.

But the same can be said for any single aisler. Don’t just single out the 757

Economy seating on 757s fall into 3 categories;
charter config (Monarch, First Choice etc 228-235seats)
scheduled config (BA, CO etc 160-180 seats)
shuttle config (BA used to run @8 757s with 195 seats)
Whilst the 757 is a great ac, imo it can be a real pain when boarding/disembarking as 200+ passengers have to use 1 aisle.