NWA parking the Avros

[Jimdandy]

Great Link JP!

It looks like the Avro isn't as exspensive as I thought. I compared them to Mesa's CRJ 900 Cost per block hour is about $250 difference in mesa's favor. Cost per a trip is $130 difference in mesa's favor again. Fuel burn 590 avro and 592 crj900 per block hour. Mesa saves it money mostly by cheaper maint. about 80 percent of savings and the other 20 comes from cheaper flight crew.

So put 85 seats in the avro with some first class and we are pretty compareable.

If NWA can renegotiate the lease terms maybe we will keep 'em.

 

[CurlyD777]

Great Link JP!

It looks like the Avro isn't as exspensive as I thought. I compared them to Mesa's CRJ 900 Cost per block hour is about $250 difference in mesa's favor. Cost per a trip is $130 difference in mesa's favor again. Fuel burn 590 avro and 592 crj900 per block hour. Mesa saves it money mostly by cheaper maint. about 80 percent of savings and the other 20 comes from cheaper flight crew.

So put 85 seats in the avro with some first class and we are pretty compareable.

If NWA can renegotiate the lease terms maybe we will keep 'em.

That is a great link, but remember that operating numbers from 2004 are not the same as 2005. We all know that fuel prices have increased dramatically since last year and the avros are losing their maintenance efficiency year by year as parts get older and engines get tired. We also don’t know the depreciation schedule NWA has on the aircraft which accounts for a portion of the per hour block price. The only part that did stay constant was the seats available.


So even though the avro did seem competitive with the others in 2004, we don’t know exactly what the accountants are looking at in September 2005.

 

[Jimdandy]

Disregard for some reason this did not post earlier!!!!



In some of the metrics the depriciation does not figure into the equation. Also if you don't like the depreciation numbers, they use, just take them out and compare apples and apples. You do have a valid point though depretiation can throw the whole picture out of wack.

As far as fuel and maint. well who isn't paying for higher gas and more maint. on their older aircraft.

I think with 85 seats she is an airplane with a future....notice I didn't say economical but in the aggregate the avro has a place in the route structure of NWA that is until something better gets bought which will take some time and lots of money.


Remember the Avro burns as much as the CRJ900 - ain't as fast - but with short hops speed matters less as you can see with the average speeds.

Have a little faith curly although you could just as easily be right but lets hope your cynicism is incorrect.

 

[DoinTime]

Fuel burn 590 avro and 592 crj900 per block hour.

Don't look over the fact that the CRJ900 may burn two gallons more per hour but its going 64 MPH (about 20%) faster. The CRJ will do a 340 mile leg in one hour with 592 gallons burnt. The Avro will do a 340 mile leg in one hour 15 minutes with 737 gallons burnt. Not looking so good for the fat boy anymore.

I doubt these numbers are even very accurate anyway as they are derived from a specific airlines operation. If Mesaba operated both aircraft on identical routes you could make a better comparison.

 

[Jimdandy]

Don't look over the fact that the CRJ900 may burn two gallons more per hour but its going 64 MPH (about 20%) faster. The CRJ will do a 340 mile leg in one hour with 592 gallons burnt. The Avro will do a 340 mile leg in one hour 15 minutes with 737 gallons burnt. Not looking so good for the fat boy anymore.

I doubt these numbers are even very accurate anyway as they are derived from a specific airlines operation. If Mesaba operated both aircraft on identical routes you could make a better comparison.

Doing time I think you need to look at the research closer.

Look at the part that says Speed -- Miles per block hour

Avro 276 miles per block hour

Crj 900 286 miles per block hour

Emb170 315 miles per block hour

Therefore the crj has a 3.5% advantage in speed and efficiency(I included effeciency because the fuel burn is almost exact at 590 & 592 for the crj and avro) and the emb170 has a 13.4% advantage in speed.

You have to look at things real world which is Block Hour remember much of our time is spent on the ground therefore your advantage isn't as great as looking at the pure speed of the aircraft.

This might be just wishful thinking on my side I don't want to lose the Avro but the numbers are not that unfavorable of my baby.

 

[DoinTime]

Avro 276 miles per block hour

Crj 900 286 miles per block hour

Emb170 315 miles per block hour

I think your misreading. The charts clearly show the Avro at 276 miles/block hour. The CRJ-900 at 340 mpbh and the EMB-170 at 315 mpbh.

Just so we are on the same page (literally) I am referring to data from Mesa's CRJ-900 on page 20.

I think we agree that this data is basically useless for making cross-carrier comparisons. Just look at the comparison between AirWis and Mesaba on the 145/Avro. These should be roughly comparable operations.

 

[Jimdandy]

Looks like your correct I was looking at the crj200 for some reason. Interesting the speeds are so similar to the 50 seater it looks like mpbh is very much a function of average block lengths.

With any respect your right this isn't a scientific comparison.

 

[gnx99]

IF the Avros go away, does anyone know if they would be slowly be phased out (over a year, or so). Or, would they all be yanked at once?

 

[CptMurf]

Linky No Worky

NW owns 10 of the RJ-85's. The other 25 are leased. Its pretty hard to renogotiate the terms on aircraft you already own.

NWA Fleet

Seems NWA took down the investor relations site. To see the NWA fleet you'll have to use the cached version.... Here it is.......

http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?p=NWA+fleet&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8&u=ir.nwa.com/phoenix.zhtml%3Fc%3D111021%26p%3Dirol-fleet&w=nwa+fleet&d=OV9lrGFULccT&icp=1&.intl=us