With the recent fallout from the Boeing 737 MAX series accidents and system failures, the advantage of a diverse fleet of aircraft is now attracting the attention of the airline industry. One airline that has the potential to be significantly affected by the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX is Southwest Airlines. Southwest has been an all Boeing 737 airline for a while now. It did have a brief stint where it operated the Boeing 717-200 in AirTran Airways colors while it was integrating the airline into its operations; however, the company ended up subleasing all of the aircraft to Delta Air Lines in 2012.

Southwest now faces a fleet problem as it does not have the new aircraft that it was expecting to operate right now. Southwest cites that planned 737 MAX operations are only 5 percent of their daily flight operations; however, if the aircraft remains on the ground for an extended period, growth and fleet plans may have to be altered. In addition, the company is not benefiting from the cost savings that the Boeing 737 MAX brings to airlines.

Above photo of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-8 or MAX 8 jet at Boeing Field in Washington. Aircraft is under assembly in the photo. The photo is by John Crowley on Flickr and Wikimedia Commons and has been enhanced by FlyRadius. Image is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

By not having a diverse fleet, Southwest is more susceptible to aircraft problems that are affecting one type of aircraft. Also, other airlines that have significant concentrations of one aircraft type, like Alaska Airlines can also face challenges when issues occur with one aircraft type.

The best way to avoid those problems is to have a diverse fleet that can minimize the disruptions caused when an aircraft program is grounded. The benefits of having a diverse fleet for small airlines are minimal; however, for large airlines, the increased “complexity” can outweigh the savings from having a single aircraft fleet.

A scenario where an airline has a fleet of a single type aircraft that is grounded will leave the airline with no flight operations. That scenario would effectively shut down an airline’s operations and leave the airline in a cash draining situation. The best way to counter that situation is to have a range of aircraft that allows an airline to avoid dependence on one aircraft type. An airline with a few aircraft types can at least continue part of its operations and not burn as much cash that a one type airline could burn. On the other hand, grounding of one type of aircraft does not happen too often, and many airlines like Southwest have decided that they are rare enough events that will not affect operations greatly if they occur.

Having a variety of aircraft types in a fleet looks a lot more compelling, cost-wise, in light of the Boeing 737 MAX problems.