Range Question A318/9

chillin117

BA operate a daily service from London City airport to JFK via Shannon for passport control and refuelling. The Aircraft used is an Airbus A318/9 laid out for about 45(ish) passengers. My Question is Can it cross the atlantic because it has so few passengers or could a fully loaded A319 (160ish)passengers make the same crossing ? I imagine Shannon's appeal is Immigration control rather than fuel ?

Irish Steve

chillin117 wrote: »

BA operate a daily service from London City airport to JFK via Shannon for passport control and refuelling. The Aircraft used is an Airbus A318/9 laid out for about 45(ish) passengers. My Question is Can it cross the atlantic because it has so few passengers or could a fully loaded A319 (160ish)passengers make the same crossing ? I imagine Shannon's appeal is Immigration control rather than fuel ?

The combination of runway length and prevailing winds over the Atlantic mean they can't get the 318 out of LCY with trip fuel, the eastbound flights operate the full distance non stop. I'd need to look at the 319 performance figures in more detail, my initial guess is that with a full load and no runway limitations, it would be marginal at best, and not possible too often for comfort.

The Airbus site is not too specific, they give "nominal" range, which would be beyond JFK, but I doubt that there's much allowance in there for reserves etc.

If it was comfortable, you can be sure that there would be an operator doing it already, but we're not seeing narrow body operations on a regular basis even from Ireland, which is about as short a flight across the pond as possible, which is as good an indication as we need.

MoeJay

Air Canada run the 319 from Heathrow to St. John's on a daily basis.

Seating capacity is max 120 (standard configuration for them, I've no idea if its payload restricted ex LHR)

Also factor in cost as well. It costs a full fuel tank and limited utilisation of the aircraft. So a Dub-JFK-Dub only per day. Whereas short haul you can get 6 or 8 passenger loads on the plane per day.

140 x €600+ 8(ish) biz x €1500= one trip x 2

Or

160 x 8 x €200 per day

Limited cargo on the TA route to get max range.

The 757 can carry about 190 and still get a good cargo load onboard hence the reason it's favourite on thin routes.

Tenger

chillin117 wrote: »

BA operate a daily service from London City airport to JFK via Shannon for passport control and refuelling....I imagine Shannon's appeal is Immigration control rather than fuel ?

Apparently they originally planned to have Edinburgh as the fuel-stop. But then some clever person realised that they could use the full CBP facility in SNN.

It seats 32 pax btw....and I am reliably told is a much sought after route/duty by the A320 crews.

eatmyshorts

MoeJay wrote: »

Air Canada run the 319 from Heathrow to St. John's on a daily basis.

Seating capacity is max 120 (standard configuration for them, I've no idea if its payload restricted ex LHR)

St John's to JFK is nearly as far as LHR to St John's.

I've done Dub - St John's - Boston. The second leg was neatly as long as the first due to winds.

Joe?

Tenger

eatmyshorts wrote: »

St John's to JFK is nearly as far as LHR to St John's.

Well its a start for the OP. He was asking about the feasibility of A320 T/A ops

man98

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=kef+-+tfs Keflavik - Tenerife South is technically across the Atlantic , 2500 miles + 30 minutes reserve against SW prevailing winds. I believe Wow air did it with an A319 over the summer. That's as close to the likes of EINN - KJFK as you can get I'd imagine, although there is the odd Boston - London charter with the 319. Once the NEOs come around it may be a different story.

smurfjed

The A319 with a couple of additional fuel tanks can take a pax load of about 90 people about 8-8.5 hours. So it can easily do the Atlantic for most of the year.

chillin117

smurfjed wrote: »

The A319 with a couple of additional fuel tanks can take a pax load of about 90 people about 8-8.5 hours. So it can easily do the Atlantic for most of the year.

Those 90 people would be paying at least business class fare to make it viable ? I believe the fare on London City=JFK is about £5000.00

Tenger

chillin117 wrote: »

Those 90 people would be paying at least business class fare to make it viable ? I believe the fare on London City=JFK is about £5000.00

It may be different now but when the route was launched the LCY-JFK pax were paying more than the same product ex-LHR.

Marcusm

chillin117 wrote: »

Those 90 people would be paying at least business class fare to make it viable ? I believe the fare on London City=JFK is about £5000.00

Tenger wrote: »

It may be different now but when the route was launched the LCY-JFK pax were paying more than the same product ex-LHR.

If you book it smartly as an ex EU, it's not hard to get it for £1200. I dont think there's any express premium at this stage and the prior Tier Points premium has, I think, gone. It's a couple of years since I used that service.

TheFitz13

Marcusm wrote: »

If you book it smartly as an ex EU, it's not hard to get it for £1200. I dont think there's any express premium at this stage and the prior Tier Points premium has, I think, gone. It's a couple of years since I used that service.

I was looking at prices for flights from London to JFK and this surprisingly came up. I would have thought BA1 with business class and Preclearance would have cost more.

afatbollix

The easter holidays mean they struggle to fill the plane so they offer good deals to the leisure market to get bums on seats.

(Private schools get 3 weeks over here)