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Delta and Hawaiian are the two US operators. Hawaiian loves it, and is struggling to replace it. They use them for island-hopping. Modern airliners don't do wel

Delta and Hawaiian are the two US operators. Hawaiian loves it, and is struggling to replace it. They use them for island-hopping. Modern airliners don't do well in this use case — modern engines have been engineered to tight tolerances to extract fuel economy, and their thermal designs rely on the cold air at cruise altitude to keep them healthy. Island hops are too short and too low for that to hold. The engines on the 717 handle it just fine, but anything else on the market will require the planes to sit on the tarmac for a significant length of time between landing and takeoff for them to cool enough, and would destroy Hawaiian's current network design, which has lots of quick flights and tight turns. Delta announced retirement a long time ago, but has been not-so-secretly buying up as many as they can get, mostly as spares for parts to keep the fleet going because it's so useful for them. Also, the A220, its replacement, has a single engine, the Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan, which has had an incredibly rough entry into service — everyone was concerned that the gearbox would be an issue, but it has been mostly rock-solid, and it's the engine core that's had dozens of issues. An airline in India has over half of its fleet grounded and filed for bankruptcy last month because P&W can't repair their engines.

Scoundreller 3y ago
> The engines on the 717 handle it just fine, but anything else on the market will require the planes to sit on the tarmac for a significant length of time between landing and takeoff for them to cool enough Is it just a matter of the brakes and tires/wheels needing to cool down or other parts need the cooldown period as well?
- bbatsell 3y ago
  No, it's entirely the engines — there are a lot of moving pieces of metal that have to safely expand and contract in understood cycles. The brakes and wheels are fine with tight turns (assuming you don't have to use max braking). Southwest operates on a very similar timetable, and in fact flies a few of the more-trafficked Hawaii island hops. The difference is that Hawaiian's 717s _only_ fly island hops all day, every day. Southwest rotates its planes, so any given plane will do at max two island hops before it flies the 6 hours back to mainland and gets plenty of cooling time, e.g., LAX -> Honolulu -> Hilo -> Honolulu -> LAX.
ghaff 3y ago
The Hawaiian Islands are sort of an interesting case. Island hopping is short for jets (and a lot of people don't really like flying small props). But they're really too far apart for a ferry service between the major islands; it was tried at one point but went out of business.
- nradov 3y ago
  The Hawaii Superferry went bankrupt mostly due to political and environmental protests. Distance between the main populated islands isn't very far.
- tialaramex 3y ago
  I think the aversion to props is a North American thing in particular. Which doesn't help Hawaiian but for Europeans it's completely normal for small hops to be in a mid-size turbo-prop (these are still jet engines, they're just spinning a propeller instead of shoving hot gas out of the back to go faster) aircraft. Sure, it's not necessarily as comfortable as an A380, but you're not stuck there for hours.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    >I think the aversion to props is a North American thing in particular. That may be. I actually flew a prop from Maui to Big Island last time I was in Hawaii. But when I was growing up they used to be super-common even on East Coast "commuter" flights especially from smaller airports.

Scoundreller 3y ago

> The engines on the 717 handle it just fine, but anything else on the market will require the planes to sit on the tarmac for a significant length of time between landing and takeoff for them to cool enough Is it just a matter of the brakes and tires/wheels needing to cool down or other parts need the cooldown period as well?

bbatsell 3y ago
No, it's entirely the engines — there are a lot of moving pieces of metal that have to safely expand and contract in understood cycles. The brakes and wheels are fine with tight turns (assuming you don't have to use max braking). Southwest operates on a very similar timetable, and in fact flies a few of the more-trafficked Hawaii island hops. The difference is that Hawaiian's 717s _only_ fly island hops all day, every day. Southwest rotates its planes, so any given plane will do at max two island hops before it flies the 6 hours back to mainland and gets plenty of cooling time, e.g., LAX -> Honolulu -> Hilo -> Honolulu -> LAX.

ghaff 3y ago

The Hawaiian Islands are sort of an interesting case. Island hopping is short for jets (and a lot of people don't really like flying small props). But they're really too far apart for a ferry service between the major islands; it was tried at one point but went out of business.

nradov 3y ago
The Hawaii Superferry went bankrupt mostly due to political and environmental protests. Distance between the main populated islands isn't very far.
tialaramex 3y ago
I think the aversion to props is a North American thing in particular. Which doesn't help Hawaiian but for Europeans it's completely normal for small hops to be in a mid-size turbo-prop (these are still jet engines, they're just spinning a propeller instead of shoving hot gas out of the back to go faster) aircraft. Sure, it's not necessarily as comfortable as an A380, but you're not stuck there for hours.
- ghaff 3y ago
  >I think the aversion to props is a North American thing in particular. That may be. I actually flew a prop from Maui to Big Island last time I was in Hawaii. But when I was growing up they used to be super-common even on East Coast "commuter" flights especially from smaller airports.