[IanFromHKG]

“Aviation experts believe that part of the problem is that Norwegian is overly using its new planes. But at the end of the day, these are expensive aircraft and unless Norwegian intensively uses them its low-cost, long-haul business model may not succeed.”

How can an aircraft be “over-used” if it goes through all mandated maintenance checks? I’m not being flippant, I just genuinely don’t understand this statement. LCCs run incredibly short turnaround times on short-haul routes and their aircraft undergo multiple cycles a day, which one would have thought would put much more strain on airframe and engines than a lower number of longer on long-haul routes. Am I missing something?

[canucklad]

The “overly using planes” is an interesting point, that I’ve not really thought of before.

And it’s got me wondering from an efficiency versus productivity point of view, what companies use their resources to their maximum effectiveness.

FR aircraft have far more daily rotations than Norwegian Long Haul creating more seats per day which means more revenue opportunities. Yet FR aircraft probably sit on the ground for about 7 hours a day.

Norwegian’s BGK routing could potentially mean that their aircraft are only idle for a max of 4 hours = 2 flight revenue opportunities.
Which might come to the heart of why LCC’s struggle long haul.
Remember that on any of MOL’s 737’s most passengers haven’t done what me and mates do.. i.e pay bottom $ for the flight and that’s it!

Nerdily I’m also trying to remember from my boyhood days an article in my Dad’s CP News detailing “A week in the life of an Empress” And if my memory hasn’t gold fished me I’m sure the week went something like this….or something very similar….

YVR-TKO
TKO-HKG
HKG-TKO
TKO-YVR
YVR-YYZ
YYZ-AMS
AMS- YYC
YYC-YVR

In that whole rotational cycle it was only on the ground for 12 hours!
So like Ian, I don’t understand how aircraft can be over used, I was always under the impression that an airliner was like a shark ….. It was designed for a specific purpose and it’s not sitting on the ground.

Then again would you drive your car continually !

[Prakton]

Norwegian of course wants to expand thir longhaul flights. A new company has been established in Ireland which has the best tax advantages. Crew from Asia and perhaps also USA if they cross the hurdles put out by the American pilots union and American airlines.They will lease in there aircrafts and outsource their staff through handlers. To sell cheaper tickets than their established competitors expect delays and long layoverswhen technical and other problems will arise from time to time.Not being an IATA member you cannot expect to be transfered to other member cariers. If one searches in the internet you will find just as competitve fares inclusive everthing whereas with Norwegian they just quote the lowest fares and add ons come. One must always see what will be the total fare ?

[AMcWhirter]

Hello Ian

The B787 is a new and revolutionary plane. Airlines which have used their new B787s less intensively have experienced fewer problems.

But as a budget carrier, Norwegian cannot afford to have expensive aircraft sitting around for longer than necessary.

The problem is compounded because Norwegian’s long-haul crew base is in Bangkok (to circumvent Scandinavian wages, social security costs etc).

It means that, at least on one occasion, the Thai-based crew in Scandinavia “ran out of hours” so, even though the B787 was ready to fly, there was no local crew available to operate it.

This information is based on extensive reporting by Scandinavian media. Strangely there has been little publicity in the UK (except in Business Traveller, of course) which I find rather surprising.

[Tallinnman]

Seems to me that the Norwegian long haul model adds a permanent hole in the cheese with crews constantly battling duty hours and in a way homeless and no doubt using crash pads in their supposed bases.

Remind me what the regulators are for. When do they wake up to this practice?

[IanFromHKG]

AMcWhirter – 09/01/2014 12:34 GMT : The B787 is a new and revolutionary plane. Airlines which have used their new B787s less intensively have experienced fewer problems.

Which just goes to confirm my personal concerns about the reliability (and safety) of these planes. I refuse to travel on them, and won’t do so until they have had a decent run without any problems surfacing. The idea that a new plane can be run within its standard operating parameters and be significantly more unreliable than less-used models – which themselves seem deeply unreliable by modern airliner standards – means I simply have insufficient confidence in them.

I recently looked at flying QR from India to London – but when I realised the second leg would be on a B787, I decided not to go…

[Author]

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