Did anyone add coffee to the list?

I have to admit this seems to be an American specialty.

They also speak English, which I am grateful for, even if there are some unpleasant historic undertones to that.

The 20+ hour journey times are probably one of the main reasons the likes of SIA would want to buy a stake in a US carrier, so they could offer more competitive timings.

A hub at LAX or SFO (or wherever) would also reduce SIA’s exposure to SIN. Nothing wrong with SIN (I think it is a marvelous airport) but big comapnies shouldn’t be too keen on having all their eggs in one basket. I would speculate this was also behind their 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic, though perhaps the transatlantic market was not the best place to stick their cash, in hindsight!

There is another thread on the 7E7, which goes into this issue – basically, the consenus seems to be that the market for very big jets is not big enough for both A and B, so B have ceded this market seeing as how the A380 programme is too advanced for Boeing to play catch up.

As to whether or not B will try to pick at the A380 market by making fairly inexpensive tweaks to the 747, I don’t know. The 747-400QXLR (or whatever it was called!) looks good but there is no indication it will ever leave the drawing board.

I will say one thing though, B has won the aesthetic battle. I am one of the herd in preferring the A320 to the 737, but the 747 is much easier on the eye than the A380!

…but Qantas and SIA do fly to Sydney and both (SIA more so) would probably look keenly at investing in a US carrier, but are prevented from doing so by the protectionist stance of the US gov’t on this issue.

My money is on the 7E7… providing the Boeing does it right (fly by wire and commonality with the 777). To arrive at this conlusion one simply has to look at the hundreds of B767s and A300/310s in fleets worldwide. The majority of these aircraft are rapidly approaching 20+ years and will have to be replaced at some point. I don’t believe the A330 quite serves the purpose as a true replacement for this market segment (I base this solely on my own observation, however feel free to prove me wrong. There are a large number of Airbus operators still operating large fleets of B767s or A300/310s or they operate A330s alongside a fleet of B767s or A300/310s. An example is Air Canada). If Boeing can deliver on its promise of fuel efficiency I think you will soon see the 7E7 as the “most popular aircraft crossing the Atlantic”.

Can I ask a straightforward question and say, why can the A330 not replace the A300/A310/767 ?

Isn’t the ERJ135 based on the Legacy biz jet? I wonder if the Legacy is LCY certified?

As a rule, no.

Only the 747 and 777 fleets have PTVs, though maybe 767s do also.

T5, the only reason a charter airline would install TV’s is in order to increase “duty free sales etc”.