[danpalmer]

Thanks, that's interesting to know about the outsourced maintenance, that does make sense and would certainly increase that flexibility.

Re: pilot training. I could imagine that going from a 737 to a 787 would be substantially easier than from 737 to A320, due to standardisation in interfaces, processes, documentation, etc, within one manufacturer. Is that the case? 5-6 weeks does still seem like a lot of downtime for a commercial pilot, and rolling everyone through that sounds like it would be prohibitively difficult for many airlines. Plus my understanding is that it's sort of a one way street, pilots don't typically (or can't feasibly?) stay rated for two aircraft types for long periods, so it would still reduce flexibility if an airline split its fleet right?

[WalterBright]

The 757 and 767 are quite different airplanes, but they were designed to minimize the differences as the pilot sees them. This increases safety by pilots not getting confused about which airplane they are driving in a crisis.