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Fleet commonality
What it is
Operating a single aircraft family so that pilots, engineers, spares, tooling and maintenance procedures are shared across the whole fleet. A mixed fleet requires separate type ratings, spares pools and maintenance capability
It is the foundation of the low-cost carrier model worldwide
Impact on industries
- Lowers CASK across training, maintenance, spares inventory and crew rostering simultaneously - the most durable cost advantage available to an airline
- Improves flexibility, since any aircraft can fly any route and any crew can operate any aircraft, reducing disruption cost
- Concentrates risk severely - a fleet-wide technical issue grounds the whole airline rather than one sub-fleet
- Constrains network strategy, since one aircraft type cannot serve both short regional routes and long-haul widebody markets efficiently