Ever-lasting question that can not be avoided in real airline world starts to play more and more important role in the VA business as well.

Many will say that, as long as you do not reach size of Emirates of Lufthansa, operating fleet that is not based around 1 aircraft manufacturer is a way to face financial disaster. Simply, benefits of common crew training and maintenance are too big to be ignored. On another side, tiny profit margins call for clever and optimised capacity management where diversity in the fleet may end if optimal fleet assignment and adaptation to the market needs.

In VA business, focus may be different, but concept remains the same. VAs like Skyeast Airways, base their organisation on realistic models, thus, having fleet consisting of 3-4 manufacturers would move them far from what is considered to be realistic. Actually, for years, SEA was rigid to keep the base of it's fleet solely on A320 and A330 despite the growing demand to introduce other popular aircraft types in the fleet.

Expansion and creation of FlySEA Group allowed to play the game differently. More operators brought opportunity to diverse the fleet while still keeping the realism as a paramount.

So, while SEA still favours the all-airbus fleet, growing group members Atlantis and Bluebear freely explore the different concepts which suit the best to their needs and market strategy.

The current outlook is that we will see the SEA fleet getting rid of non-standard capacity (A321, B739) and replacing these airplanes with standard A320 configuration which proved it's dominance on the market. At the same time, partner VAs will probably follow similar model, where, even if more than 1 type is used, they will still carefully consider the interchangable seat configurations built around 70+ seater regionals, B738 in Americas and 319s on european niche regional market covered by BYB.

Long range fleet somewhat opposes to this logic and, as long as seat capacity allows, A330/340 as well as B777 will keep their position within the group. However, it is not likely to see any additional model entering into the service on this segment.