Fair, I'll accept that and apologise to AP, but I do find it somewhat frustrating that on the one hand some people (not AP in particular) complain there's no service on some city pair they desire or that they had it and it disappeared, but OTOH if the notion of service potentially resuming appears, such as the supposed ADL-SIN, there's also complaints if it's not the super widebody they want.
I get it, I'd like a widebody with a proper J or F cabin and service on every flight.. but that's just not going to be a thing.
I don't think AP has 'head in the sand'. Many Australians (and others) dislike narrowbody aircraft full stop, and if on routes of longer than two hours, the dislike becomes even stronger. If the market prefers widebody aircraft, then operators without these may struggle (although many don;t research this prior to their trip).
There's what passengers might WANT (see above) but there's what the market (ie those same pax demand - ie numbers, and would pay, ie yield) that will decide what a particular airline can afford to make work on the route. That's what I meant by "harsh realities" in my earlier post.
The operators will put on aircraft they a) have and b) can make work viably onto a route, or not fly it at all. For example, for QF clearly the 767 that used to do ADL-SIN as QF81/82 (IIRC) clearly became uneconomic to do so, To an extent they don't "care" what the flying public prefer, but what they'll pay for. Given the vast majority of pax (again, take the average member of AFF out of this as most of us have far more interest and knowledge of aircraft and product than the average person who wants to go from A to B does) purchase on price, and to a lesser extent schedule, or loyalty (corporate or FF) that for the vast majority it doesn't matter that much.
I agree that most would be surprised and dismayed when the purchase J on SYD-DPS or BNE-PER and get a 737, and those in the know will avoid them, but the majority buying on price or schedule will not worry.. and a Y seat is more or less a Y seat and unpleasant (yes, I grant you a couple sitting in the 2 side of a 2-4-2 A330 is much nicer than in a 3-3 of a 737/A321).
It's not just in J: in Y, it's perceived as more spacious if one's in a two-aisle plane.
Yes, of course. I don't disagree.
It's not just 'cheap', but some would call it 'horrible'. Being blocked when one wants to go to a rear loo by a trolley, or attendants walking up and down.
Which can also happen on a widebody - I mean you've got a meal service happening on an wide, it's usually going to take both aisles.. so while one might be able to move up or down the aisle they are in while the service is going on, there's still a chance that access to a lav would be blocked in the other aisle. Of course in the much larger birds with mid cabin and rear lavs this is less an issue I agree.
All this said and agreed with, I still find the use of the "cheap"(with or without the -skate) to be somewhat odd in the context of where to deploy aircraft.
Again, my argument is not against what people prefer - no argument there - but about what makes sense for the market.
I suspect if you're the average punter and want to go to SIN from ADL, you'd FAR prefer having a direct 7ish hour flight with no stops, vs a 10+ hours transit going via MEL/SYD/PER to get there, and if the airline can provide that that would be worth it for most passengers, no matter what the aircraft type is. Even more so if looking to onward connections.
So I get it's not preferable to have a narrowbody cabin for longer flights (I myself recently chose more expensive options from east coast US to HNL over a cheaper connecting itin because it meant a widebody for 8 hours, vs 2 5ish hour A321s - and I did that both for the time saving but more importantly the cabin - in this case J for obvious reasons. Y would be a much harder choice) but I don't quite understand how it makes an airline "cheap" to offer the flight vs probably not being able to offer it at all in a bigger aircraft because the economics don't work for them.
So how is it "cheap"?
ax (and also lavs
) and of course a newer aircraft is probably going to be far more reliable too.
