Boeing’s Humble 737 to replace jumbos for transatlantic flights

bloomberg.com

14 points·megafounder··5 comments

"Boeing’s 757, the world’s longest single-aisle airliner with around 200 seats and a range in excess of 4,000 miles, has been plying the Atlantic for years"

Yeah, and it's a mistake. Never fly a 757 westbound, especially from continental Europe. I've been delayed in Goose Bay, Canada for refueling a few times because of a heavy jet stream. Any connections less than 2 hours will be blown to smithereens.

Here's the latest one, 9 hours ago. These poor saps aren't making any connections today.

https://twitter.com/AirlineFlyer/status/776488074633179137

The 737MAX looks like an identically bad bet.

I fly back to the US from Germany about twice a year, and my most memorable west-bound flight (for the wrong reasons) was on a USAir 757. Felt like a bus going over potholes the whole way.

737s have already flown transatlantic flights; SAS used to run the oil-company special, a direct service, all business-class, on a 737 from Stavanger (Norway) to Houston (United States).

Similarly, British Airways still flies between London City airport and New York/JFK on an Airbus A318, also all business-class.

(and though the headline only mentions the 737, the article correctly points out that Airbus is aiming for this market too, with a planned long-range version of the A321neo)

WestJet fly from Glasgow to Toronto, with a stopover in Halifax, with a 737-700 as of last year. Unlike those examples, this has no true business class seating at all.

But the A318 can only do the return flight non-stop, they stop to refuel in Shannon on their way to JFK. Mostly due to the short runway in London City, but still not really a comparison to what low cost carriers are planning.

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