The great transition to transatlantic narrowbodies hasn’t happened.

At least not yet.

Looking at the amount of flying between Europe and North America over the past two decades, the widebody continues to dominate. Even when measured in block hours rather than seats, the transatlantic is still very much a market for the twin-aisle.

More notable a change than the increase in narrowbodies, in fact, is the drastic decrease in very large widebodies. The 747 and A380 weren’t exactly the most common aircraft transiting the Atlantic; however, when considering seats, the 747 represented 24% of the total capacity in 2005.

Today, even when the A380 is included in the category, the very large widebody represents less than 5%.

The increase in transatlantic flying by the A321neo is evident post-COVID. But when we consider what a workhorse the 757 was (and still holds its own amid dwindling numbers), the narrowbody has a long way to go to meet the promise of disrupting the market.

The change of time has grown the market substantially, yet the mix of aircraft categories has remained largely static (except for the 747 and A380). The medium widebody—the 767, 787, and A330—continues to dominate across the Atlantic.

This makes sense. The promise of fragmentation by the narrowbody has been a practice for the past two decades; it’s just been handled by the medium widebody. The old marketing story of the 787 has largely held true. The A380? Not so much.

The question is whether the new marketing story of the long-range narrowbody will be a topic of the next two decades.

But, we cannot consider an analysis complete without looking at the individual aircraft families making up transatlantic flying. Today, it remains dominated by the A330, 777 and 787.

But which aircraft comes in at number 4?

Click here for the answer.

Research published this week

We have been in a research publishing frenzy the past week. Here are some of the analyses you may have missed if you’re not a subscriber to Visual Approach Research:

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