WIederling wrote:

travelhound wrote:

If we consider airlines like Jetstar who swapped out their 305 seat A330-200's for 330 seat 787-8's have said on multiple occasions the fuel efficiency of the 787 make it a very profitable aircraft to operate, we have to ask ourselves what are the advantages of the A330NEO. Jetstar operate their 787's predominantly on short and medium haul flights, not long haul flights.

When did Qantas order that batch of 788 tagged for use by JetStar?

Afair early on 788 were sold for much less than an A330(-200).
With 10..12% lower fuel _and_ lower capital cost the 788 obviously are an improvement over using the old set of A330.

I think we can say with a high degree of certainty a 787 will always be more fuel efficient than an A330.

If we consider the NEO is 14% more efficient than the CEO and A.Net consensus still believes the 787 still has a small efficiency advantage over the NEO, I am not too sure why the Jetstar example should be brought into question. Remember not only is the 787 more efficient, it carries 10% more people.

A 14% fuel efficiency delta equates to nearly $400,000.00 per aircraft per month. This would more than offset the higher capital costs of a 787.

keesje wrote:

ElroyJetson wrote:

keesje wrote:

Elroy, you say that you have found CASM on the 787-9 is slightly better, 2-5%. What assumptions, seatspecs and class build up is behind that? That totally determines the CASM you refer to. The A330NEO seems a little lighter than the 789, has a slightly smaller frontal area, higher aspect wing and can carry slightly less fuel in it tanks. The NEO's RR engines are only slightly newer than the 787's. Maybe A330NEO is therefor the just slightly more fuel efficient aircraft. I would certainly believe your economics / CASM estimation, but I would certainly need some basic evidence.

I posted the link in another thread. Wiki fuel efficiency in aircraft. The links to the source data is in the appendix. The data is fascinating.


Fuel burn for a 3000nm mission for an A339 is 21 lbs per mile. The 789 is 20.5 lbs per mile on a similar mission. Roughly a 2-3% difference. As I said.....very close on intermediate length missions.

CASM is within the same range.

I don't take CASM serious without seatcounts, you should't neither. Data is great, specially objective, complete data with clear assumptions and starting points. Otherwise you fall victim to the apples & oranges business.

Both aircraft have the same engines, one is slightly lighter and sleaker. The other one is more fuel efficient, because its our Boeing 787 Dreamliner?

If you use a standard 2-class configuration you should get some fairly sensible numbers.

...but, we also have to consider the 787 is relatively more adaptable to a range of seating configurations when compared to the A330.

As such, for airlines operating the aircraft they can use this adaptability to gain even more efficiency (over a standard 2-class configuration). We know the Jetstar 787-8's have 10% more seats than the once used A330-200's, even though in a 2-class configuration these aircraft are within 5-10 seats of each other.

I am not too sure why you would use a vagueness of CASM argument against the 787, when there is data to suggest the 787 has a seating capacity advantage over the A330.

Interestingly, Airbus has done a lot of work to increase the flexibility of the A330 cabins in the NEO models.

travelhound wrote:

A 14% fuel efficiency delta equates to nearly $400,000.00 per aircraft per month. This would more than offset the higher capital costs of a 787.

The A332 has slightly more uplift and capacity. The real delta A330 CEO to 788 was murmured to be ~8%..10% not 14% ( number via Leeham at the time).
( Finally you can still go 9 across on the A330 for "true (TM) Low Cost" arrangement.)

A333 and 789 seem to match rather well.
If the delta for 332 to 788 was <10% then the beefed up 789 delta to A333 CEO won't be bigger.

To conclude I don't think there is much delta remaining beyond the domains of PR booklets and Fan Lore

WIederling wrote:

The real delta A330 CEO to 788 was murmured to be ~8%..10% not 14% ( number via Leeham at the time).
<snip>
If the delta for 332 to 788 was <10% then the beefed up 789 delta to A333 CEO won't be bigger.

To conclude I don't thing there is much delta remaining beyond the domains of PR booklets and Fan Lore

So the conclusion is based on a "murmur"?

TheOldDude wrote:

So the conclusion is based on a "murmur"?

Operator info passed via Leeham at the time. no names mentioned, nothing written.
IMU quantum leaps more reliable than anything from "seeking alpha" or comparable sources.

WIederling wrote:

TheOldDude wrote:

So the conclusion is based on a "murmur"?

Operator info passed via Leeham at the time. no names mentioned, nothing written.
IMU quantum leaps more reliable than anything from "seeking alpha" or comparable sources.

We had the whole discussion about sources on pages 8 and 9 of this very thread. You may remember posting a link to the Wikipedia article of "the art of being right" when you were criticizing seeking alpha. Leeham is not entirely objective and neither is seeking alpha. The A330-900 is only a glider at this point with delivery pushed back well into 2018, so we won't have accurate numbers for a while. Although he doesn't really acknowledge it, in many of his pontifications, Scott Hamilton on Leeham appears to have a grudge against Boeing, so I don't find his analysis quantum leaps more reliable. It usually matches pretty closely with Airbus marketing figures, which aren't particularly objective.

We can't see the forest because of the trees!

The 787 competes in the A330, A350 and even 777-300ER market spaces. It can economically trade capacity for range and still maintain an economic advantage in doing so.

Elementary maths and simple logic combined with real world experiences should be enough to demonstrate the 787 has some very real advantages over the A330.

We can argue as much as we like about which set of analysis is correct