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Comment by peteretep | Hacker News Reader

Very few serious airlines are running exclusively Boeing or Airbus

really? I always thought that a lot of the low cost domestic airlines in the US managed costs by maintaining a fleet of a single type of plane. Southwest Airlines for example is entirely Boeing 737 (according to wikipedia, 513 737-700, 207 737-800, and 34 737 MAX 8--presumable grounded.)

Ryanair is another. But “very few” doesn’t mean “no”. I wonder if (but doubt) there are any airlines who also fly big planes (and have more than a handful of planes) that are single manufacturer only.

Ryanair is a CC of Southwest.

That's usually because of age (at some point in history they got a deal, or one manufacturer didn't have a model etc), or because of mergers.

What's certain is that all airlines dream of having only one manufacturer. If they have multiple, they often try to make one hub service one type of plane, e.g. fly all their Airbuses past one airport and all their Boeings past another (For competing models such as A320 vs 737)

This incident should show why only having one manufacturer supply your planes is a bad idea.

Most that have multiple providers probably have e.g. Airbus widebody jets and boeing narrowbody jets etc. Most airlines don't have an equal spread of A320/737's for example.

A good idea even when all planes are the same manufacturer is probably to not have all planes being the same model so they all get grounded in case of a discovery (An NG 737 is not the same as an older one which is not the same as a MAX etc)

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