Fleet commonality is a way to seriously reduce your operating costs, and gives an operator a greater amount of flexibility. Its much easier to ‘swap’ capacity around the network, if you operate a ‘common type’, because all you do is swap out the airframe. Trying to do this when you operate several different fleets is an absolute nightmare.
The costs savings made far outweigh keeping a specific a/c type in service, to operate one or two routes, where it would allow you to carry a few more pax. It may even make commercial sense to reduce the capacity on these routes. Differences in operating costs, a possible increase in the yield on the route, maybe sufficient to warrant a 150 seater versus a 200 seater, with minimal impact on the revenue.
To be absolutely frank, apart from purchase/operating costs, there is virtually nothing else that makes one particular manufacturer stand out from another. There is literally a choice of ‘two flavours’, be it in the 50-70 seater regional jet market, or 250-350 seater medium/long haul market.
While we would all love to see ‘our own’ particular aircraft type flown, it all comes down to economics nothing else. Long gone are the days where variety ruled.
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