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In aviation, fleet commonality is the economic and logistic benefits of operating a standardized fleet of aircraft that share common parts, training requirements, or other characteristics.
Commonality policies may be defined in a variety of ways, depending on the operator:
Airbus and Boeing have commonality in their products within and across families.
The A330 and A340 share many common features. The same cockpit is shared between the A330 and A340, however the A340 controls four engines instead of two on the A330. The A330 and A340 share the same wings, nose, tail and horizontal stabilizers. The A340 features an extra bogie of landing gears under the belly to support extra weight. The A330-300 and A340-300 share the same fuselage and wings, however with the A340-300 featuring an extra bogie of landing gears under the belly, and powered by four engines instead of two.
The 767-400ER shares common features with the 757/767 family of airplanes, including a common pilot type rating between the 757 and 767. This allows any pilot trained to fly one model to be qualified to fly the other model with minimal additional instruction. Compatibility with the 757/767 family means that operators can gain better access to the demanding medium-size market (200-300 seats) by matching the appropriate airplane to variable requirements. They can also improve operating efficiency through lower training requirements, greater flexibility in assigning flight crews, and reduced spares inventories. [6]
The new 767-400ER flight deck makes the airplane easier to maintain and provides flexibility for operators to tailor the flight-deck equipment to their training needs. A new instrument panel and avionics package consolidate 67 different flight deck parts to 20, simplifying 767 maintenance and improving flight crew efficiency.
On the instrument panel, the most notable change on the 767-400ER is the use of six large liquid-crystal displays in the same arrangement as the Boeing 777 and Next-Generation 737 flight decks. Pilots of these models receive similar information in a similar format. This significantly reduces training requirements to transition pilots of these other Boeing models to the 767-400ER. [6]
The Boeing 767 is an American wide-body aircraft developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The aircraft was launched as the 7X7 program on July 14, 1978, the prototype first flew on September 26, 1981, and it was certified on July 30, 1982. The original 767-200 entered service on September 8, 1982, with United Airlines, and the extended-range 767-200ER in 1984. It was stretched into the 767-300 in October 1986, followed by the 767-300ER in 1988, the most popular variant. The 767-300F, a production freighter version, debuted in October 1995. It was stretched again into the 767-400ER from September 2000.
The Boeing 777, commonly referred to as the Triple Seven, is an American long-range wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. It is the world's largest twinjet. The 777 was designed to bridge the gap between Boeing's other wide body airplanes, the twin-engined 767 and quad-engined 747, and to replace older DC-10s and L-1011 trijets. Developed in consultation with eight major airlines, with a first meeting in January 1990, the program was launched in October, with an order from United Airlines. The prototype was rolled out in April 1994, and first flew in June. The 777 entered service with the launch customer, United Airlines, in June 1995. Longer range variants were launched in 2000, and were first delivered in 2004.
The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating but with two underwing turbofans instead of four. Envisioned in 1964, the initial 737-100 made its first flight in April 1967 and entered service in February 1968 with Lufthansa. The lengthened 737-200 entered service in April 1968, and evolved through four generations, offering several variants for 85 to 215 passengers.
The Boeing 757 is an American narrow-body airliner designed and built by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The then-named 7N7, a twinjet successor for the 727, received its first orders in August 1978. The prototype completed its maiden flight on February 19, 1982 and it was FAA certified on December 21, 1982. Eastern Air Lines placed the original 757-200 in commercial service on January 1, 1983. A package freighter (PF) variant entered service in September 1987 and a combi model in September 1988. The stretched 757-300 was launched in September 1996 and began service in March 1999. After 1,050 had been built for 54 customers, production ended in October 2004, while Boeing offered the largest 737 NG variants as a successor.
The Airbus A330 is a wide-body aircraft developed and produced by Airbus. Airbus conceived several derivatives of the A300, its first airliner from the mid-1970s. Then the company began development on the A330 twinjet in parallel with the A340 quadjet and launched both designs with their first orders in June 1987. The A330-300, the first variant, took its maiden flight in November 1992 and entered service with Air Inter in January 1994. The slightly shorter A330-200 variant followed in 1998.
A wide-body aircraft, also known as a twin-aisle aircraft, is an airliner with a fuselage wide enough to accommodate two passenger aisles with seven or more seats abreast. The typical fuselage diameter is 5 to 6 m. In the typical wide-body economy cabin, passengers are seated seven to ten abreast, allowing a total capacity of 200 to 850 passengers. The largest wide-body aircraft are over 6 m (20 ft) wide, and can accommodate up to eleven passengers abreast in high-density configurations.
The Boeing 747-400 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, an advanced variant of the initial Boeing 747. The "Advanced Series 300" was announced at the September 1984 Farnborough Airshow, targeting a 10% cost reduction with more efficient engines and 1,000 nautical miles (1,900 km) of additional range. Northwest Airlines (NWA) became the first customer with an order for 10 aircraft on October 22, 1985. The first 747-400 was rolled out on January 26, 1988, and made its maiden flight on April 29, 1988. Type certification was received on January 9, 1989, and it entered service with NWA on February 9, 1989.
ETOPS is an acronym for Extended-range Twin-engine Operations Performance Standards—a special part of flight rules for one-engine-inoperative flight conditions. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) coined the acronym for twin-engine aircraft operation in airspace further than one hour from a diversion airport at the one-engine-inoperative cruise speed, over water or remote lands, or on routes previously restricted to three- and four-engine aircraft.
A glass cockpit is an aircraft cockpit that features electronic (digital) flight instrument displays, typically large LCD screens, rather than the traditional style of analog dials and gauges. While a traditional cockpit relies on numerous mechanical gauges to display information, a glass cockpit uses several multi-function displays driven by flight management systems, that can be adjusted to display flight information as needed. This simplifies aircraft operation and navigation and allows pilots to focus only on the most pertinent information. They are also popular with airline companies as they usually eliminate the need for a flight engineer, saving costs. In recent years the technology has also become widely available in small aircraft.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) is a division of The Boeing Company. It designs, assembles, markets, and sells jet airliners and business jets, and also provides product-related maintenance and training to customers worldwide. BCA operates out of its division headquarters in Renton, Washington, and has more than a dozen engineering, manufacturing, and assembly facilities located throughout the United States and internationally. It includes the assets of the Douglas Aircraft division of the former McDonnell Douglas Corporation, which merged with Boeing in 1997. As of the end of 2021, BCA employed about 35,926 people.
A unit load device (ULD) is a container used to load luggage, freight, and mail on wide-body aircraft and specific narrow-body aircraft. It allows preloading of cargo, confidence the containerised load will fit in the aircraft and efficient planning of aircraft weight and balance and reduced labour and time in loading aircraft holds compared with 'bulk-loading' single items of cargo or luggage by hand. Each ULD has its own packing list or manifest so that its contents can be tracked. A loaded aircraft cargo pallet secured with a cargo net also forms a ULD, but its load must be gauged for size in addition to being weighed to ensure aircraft door and hold clearances.
A cargo aircraft is a fixed-wing aircraft that is designed or converted for the carriage of cargo rather than passengers. Such aircraft usually do not incorporate passenger amenities and generally feature one or more large doors for loading cargo. Freighters may be operated by civil passenger or cargo airlines, by private individuals or by the armed forces of individual countries.
Yellowstone is a Boeing Commercial Airplanes project to replace its entire civil aircraft portfolio with advanced technology aircraft. New technologies to be introduced include composite aerostructures, more electrical systems, and more fuel-efficient turbofan engines. The term "Yellowstone" refers to the technologies, while "Y1" through "Y3" refer to the actual aircraft.
A twinjet or twin-engine jet is a jet aircraft powered by two engines. A twinjet is able to fly well enough to land with a single working engine, making it safer than a single-engine aircraft in the event of failure of an engine. Fuel efficiency of a twinjet is better than that of aircraft with more engines. These considerations have led to the widespread use of aircraft of all types with twin engines, including airliners, fixed-wing military aircraft, and others.
A type rating is an authorization entered on or associated with a pilot licence and forming part thereof, stating pilot's privileges or limitations pertaining to certain aircraft type. Such qualification requires additional training beyond the scope of the initial license and aircraft class training.
The Boeing 737 Classic is a series of narrow-body airliners produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, the second generation of the Boeing 737 series of aircraft. Development began in 1979 and the first variant, the 737-300, first flew in February 1984 and entered service that December. The stretched 737-400 first flew in February 1988 and entered service later that year. The shortest variant, the 737-500, first flew in June 1989 and entered service in 1990.
The Boeing 737 Next Generation, commonly abbreviated as 737NG, or 737 Next Gen, is a narrow-body aircraft powered by two jet engines and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Launched in 1993 as the third generation derivative of the Boeing 737, it has been produced since 1997 and is an upgrade of the 737 Classic (−300/-400/-500) series.
The Delta Air Lines fleet consists of 943 aircraft, making it the largest airline fleet in the world. Delta Air Lines operates a fleet manufactured by Airbus and Boeing, and is the largest operator of the Boeing 717, Boeing 757, and Boeing 767, and has the largest Airbus A220, Airbus A330 and Airbus A350 fleet of any US airline.
The middle of the market, often abbreviated MoM, is the airliner market between the narrowbody and the widebody aircraft, a market segmentation used by Boeing Commercial Airplanes since at least 2003. Both Airbus and Boeing produce aircraft that serve this segment.
The New Midsize Airplane (NMA), or New Midsize Aircraft, is a concept airliner proposed by Boeing to fill the middle of the market segment.
