I could see using a spare aircraft doing the occasional tag end, but recently this route has been served by turns on this fancy new equipment: viz. AA 198 and 199. What's the reason - a flying advertisement?
Aircraft utilization and publishing BOS-MXP as a direct flight in the GDS. Been happening for a couple years now IIRC. And when BOS-JFK is delayed and it screws the JFK-LAX/SFO flight that the plane is needed for that's a lot of .
I've been a victim of this before with long Boston delays .. delaying my JFK > SFO flight delayed for hours..
I thought there was no requirement that a "direct" flight uses the same equipment on all legs - or is that different for AA? (that would actually be a positive thing IMO)
It is not the same equipment. That's just the reason they use those flight numbers, not the aircraft type. The A321T is not rated for over-water service.
My primary question related to the choice of plane and configuration: 10/20/72 is an awful lot of lie-flat seats (though only the 10 get premium service). That's true of 198/199 (same aircraft for both numbers on the domestic leg), but I don't see that reasoning explaining 1039 (one hand clapping, er, plane turning).
The primary reasoning is fleet utilization and capacity demand on the route. Even when not a "direct" flight it is believed by AA to be the "right" number of seats sold in the market at that time. it is less significant to the company that it is a lie-flat config on the short hop than that it is the 100 seat plane.
The 190 could offer the same number of seats but they'd also have to get it in and out of JFK (i.e. find another route for it that also works at that size and times) and justify the opportunity costs. There is just enough slack in the A321T schedule that if JFK ops don't go to hell things should be fine. But that's a mighty big "if" involved.
Ah thanks. I did see a couple examples of surprise-and-delight yesterday, though, with people hauled up from MCE to the front, and their pleasure was clear - one guy, who got his as result of a misconnect, couldn't get over it. So I'm still wondering about the Boston clientele vs. the DCA one, for example.
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