With nearly 12,000 having been built since the open of producing within the leisurely 1960s, the Boeing 737’s fame and capability hold made the acquisition of every and each person a milestone for any airline. The flexibility to flee 189 passengers at speeds as excessive as 827 km/h for a range of 5,185 km makes these narrowbody plane a excessive-price asset. AirExplore, Slovakia’s premier airline, has expanded and up so some distance its rapidly vastly since its acquisition by Avia Alternatives Team final June. As AirExplore CEO Martin Stulajter explains, the capabilities and price which were added to the airline are serving to to invent a rapidly that’s able to global expansion.
In October 2024, 14 years after the airline’s founding, AirExplore’s rapidly contains 17 plane, alongside side each and each passenger and cargo variants of Boeing’s 737-800. These subsequent-generation plane are upgrades of the 737-400s that were before every thing within the airline’s rapidly at delivery. Stulajter says that the first difference between these two variants is the ability.
“The utmost ability of the 737-400 is 168-170 economy class seats, while the 737-800 has a maximum of 189 economy class seats,” he says. “It would possibly well actually per chance moreover simply not seem so, however these extra dozen seats way a immense difference in revenues given the scale of operations of every and each plane.”
In conserving with Stulajter, the extra seats of the following-generation 737 would possibly well well per chance moreover simply stay wakeful in millions of extra revenue.
“As an instance, a steady yearly utilization of such plane is ready 3,000 flight hours. If the frequent flight dimension is 3 hours, it capacity an airline does about 1,000 flights per 300 and sixty five days,” he explains. “If the frequent model model of €250 for these 20 extra seats is completed across these 1,000 flights, the addition of 20,000 passengers portions to €5 million of revenue.”
As a change of the revenue revenue of the extra seating ability, the 737-800 also offers the airline an increased differ. In conserving with Stulajter, the form can flee a further 1.5 hours when put next to the 737-400, which increases the aptitude routes and customer corrupt the jet can befriend. With the retirement of the five 737 Classics within the airline’s rapidly completed in 2015, the 737-800 became once a easy transition for AirExplore.
Both extra revenue and increased differ were very crucial for the transition to the plane form, as these substances would be crucial to paying for the expansion. Stulajter remembers when the price of the 737-800 became once double that of the Classics.
“Basically the most critical change needed to happen within the mindset of the folks guilty for the airline’s economics, as we needed to conceal the price by using the plane extra than the Classics,” he says. “We paid for the variation by flying extra, and this required us to bring extra group to the firm, which then meant we needed to grow bigger than before.”
AirExplore did exactly that. The airline grew to change into the largest in Slovakia and has added a total of eight 737s in 2024 while rising its regulatory approvals and security certifications. One house of growth for AirExplore has been cargo, with the provider adding seven extra 737 freighters, with the most fresh addition as most modern as June 2024. After these additions, the rapidly now contains eight 737-800 freighter plane that previously flew passengers before conversion by each and each Boeing and US-based mostly totally Aeronautical Engineers Inc.
“The transformed 737-800 freighter flies connected to its passenger version and has the same avionics, however our pilots struggle through extra practicing for operation of the cargo door and load distribution,” Stulajter says. “We operate these cargo plane within the EU market for predominant integrators relish DHL and UPS, and we’re also very packed with life within the advert-hoc market where we assist to scoot cargo of every form to many diversified areas.”
Turning into a narrowbody freighter operator comes with unfamiliar challenges, as the cargo market skilled several shocks throughout the COVID-19 pandemic that to within the imply time hold tidy impacts on the economics of the logistics industry. To change into willing for this airline market section, AirExplore increased its capabilities to tackle every project.
“It has nearly been three years since we started operating cargo plane. It’s some distance a minute little bit of a scramble enterprise because it doesn’t require as heavy utilization of the plane as with the passenger ones, however on the diversified hand, it is extremely weak to the GDP efficiency of the worldwide economy with fewer seasonal fluctuations than pax ops,” Stulajter says. “To change into a provider, we needed to dig deeper into the compliance, going through of unpleasant goods and load management from the standpoint of flight operations engineering.”
Equipped with each and each 737-800 passenger and cargo variants, AirExplore advantages from the simplicity of single-form operations, as well to the strong point of that form within the ACMI market.
“Fewer ACMI operators are providing the Boeing product within the European ACMI section when put next to Airbus plane, which offers us a exiguous competitive revenue,” Stulajter says.
With the 737 providing a scramble capability, and the increased ability compounding extra revenue, the airline is mulling the addition of the 737 MAX, based mostly totally on reporting by Ch-Aviation. Whereas a resolution on future plane types would possibly well well per chance possibly be on the horizon, AirExplore continues to construct the mandatory regulatory approvals to extra expand its operations across the globe.
