Air Lease Corp chairman: Future fleets may depend on success of long range narrowbodies

Air Lease Corporation executive chairman Steven Udvar-Házy, speaking at CAPA Live May 2021, stated (12-May-2021) the future fleet composition of many airlines may depend on the success of long range narrowbody aircraft such as the A321XLR. Mr Udvar-Házy said: "If those airplanes catch on, and can operate more of these sectors that are six, seven, eight hours, and operate maybe higher frequencies and a more flexible schedule compared to a widebody, that will change the whole pattern of what's going on" in markets such as the North Atlantic, US-Latin America, Europe-Africa and intra-Asia. Mr Udvar-Házy added: "Widebodies are not going anywhere, but the proportion of widebodies in the overall global fleet may actually come down a little bit in the next three or four years".