With almost 12,000 having been built on story of the originate up of production within the unhurried 1960s, the Boeing 737’s reputation and functionality personal made the acquisition of each one a milestone for any airline. The capability to cruise 189 passengers at speeds as excessive as 827 km/h for a vary of 5,185 km makes these narrowbody plane a excessive-stamp asset. AirExplore, Slovakia’s premier airline, has expanded and up so a long way its fleet massively since its acquisition by Avia Solutions Community remaining June. As AirExplore CEO Martin Stulajter explains, the capabilities and stamp which personal been added to the airline are serving to to safe a fleet that is able to world growth.
In October 2024, 14 years after the airline’s founding, AirExplore’s fleet includes 17 plane, together with both passenger and cargo variants of Boeing’s 737-800. These next-technology plane are upgrades of the 737-400s that were before everything within the airline’s fleet at originate. Stulajter says that the most valuable distinction between these two variants is the ability.
“Doubtlessly the most ability of the 737-400 is 168-170 financial system class seats, while the 737-800 has a most of 189 financial system class seats,” he says. “It will also honest no longer appear so, but those additional dozen seats originate a mighty distinction in revenues given the scale of operations of each plane.”
In step with Stulajter, the additional seats of the next-technology 737 also can honest cease up in millions of extra income.
“For example, a honest yearly utilization of such plane is about 3,000 flight hours. If the in vogue flight length is 3 hours, it methodology an airline does about 1,000 flights per year,” he explains. “If the in vogue ticket stamp of €250 for those 20 additional seats is achieved at some stage in those 1,000 flights, the addition of 20,000 passengers amounts to €5 million of income.”
Except for the income good thing concerning the additional seating ability, the 737-800 furthermore affords the airline an increased vary. In step with Stulajter, the kind can cruise an additional 1.5 hours when when put next with the 737-400, which increases the functionality routes and customer unfriendly the jet can aid. With the retirement of the 5 737 Classics within the airline’s fleet achieved in 2015, the 737-800 changed into a straightforward transition for AirExplore.
Both extra income and increased vary were necessary for the transition to the plane kind, as these aspects would be very most valuable to paying for the growth. Stulajter remembers when the worth of the 737-800 changed into double that of the Classics.
“A in point of fact powerful change needed to happen within the mindset of the individuals responsible for the airline’s economics, as we needed to veil the worth by the use of the plane extra than the Classics,” he says. “We paid for the variation by flying extra, and this required us to bring extra personnel to the company, which then meant we needed to develop bigger than earlier than.”
AirExplore did precisely that. The airline turned the excellent in Slovakia and has added a total of eight 737s in 2024 while increasing its regulatory approvals and security certifications. One role of yell for AirExplore has been cargo, with the provider together with seven extra 737 freighters, with the most up-to-date addition as peaceable as June 2024. After these additions, the fleet now includes eight 737-800 freighter plane that beforehand flew passengers earlier than conversion by both Boeing and US-essentially essentially based mostly Aeronautical Engineers Inc.
“The transformed 737-800 freighter flies the an analogous as its passenger version and has the an analogous avionics, but our pilots plow via extra practicing for operation of the cargo door and load distribution,” Stulajter says. “We operate these cargo plane within the EU market for main integrators like DHL and UPS, and we’re furthermore very full of life within the ad-hoc market where we wait on to jog cargo of all varieties to many completely different locations.”
Becoming a narrowbody freighter operator comes with gripping challenges, because the cargo market experienced several shocks at some stage within the COVID-19 pandemic that to this day personal tremendous impacts on the economics of the logistics industrial. To become inspiring for this airline market section, AirExplore increased its capabilities to deal with each process.
“It has almost been three years since we started working cargo plane. It is somewhat of a clear industrial on story of it doesn’t require as heavy utilization of the plane as with the passenger ones, but on the plenty of hand, it’s a long way amazingly liable to the GDP performance of the global financial system with fewer seasonal fluctuations than pax ops,” Stulajter says. “To become a provider, we needed to dig deeper into the compliance, dealing with of awful items and load management from the attitude of flight operations engineering.”
Geared up with both 737-800 passenger and cargo variants, AirExplore advantages from the simplicity of single-kind operations, as successfully because the individuality of that kind within the ACMI market.
“Fewer ACMI operators are providing the Boeing product within the European ACMI section when when put next with Airbus plane, which affords us a runt competitive advantage,” Stulajter says.
With the 737 providing a gripping functionality, and the increased ability compounding extra income, the airline is mulling the addition of the 737 MAX, consistent with reporting by Ch-Aviation. Whereas a option on future plane varieties also can doubtlessly be on the horizon, AirExplore continues to originate the specified regulatory approvals to additional develop its operations at some stage within the globe.
