I’ve seen airlines favour the 500 variant over the 600 despite the 600 having better specs as it is the newer variant. The only benefit for the 500 is the leasing rate is 95k/week as opposed to 100k/week for the 600.
Would love to hear some of your thoughts as I’m conflicted as to which one to go for.
How do you know they favor it? Maybe just because they had the 500 before the 600 came out? Or maybe because used 500s were much cheaper to get than a new 600 ones? On Gatow for example the 600 variant is much more popular i think (36 vs 502).
The 500 has a bit lower leasing rate, as you already mentioned but also has lower effective range (around 400km) and needs a bit longer runway than the 600 and is a bit slower (10km/h). So it depends on your requirements if you want to save a little bit of money at the cost of flexibility you maybe don’t need.
For the most part, it comes down to UM availability + costs. Most of the time the -500 has older models available for dirt cheap in the UM.
In addition, many airlines do favor saving the initial million (or the 5k on the lease) over sometimes unneeded boosts. Unless you’re flying into the Scottish Isles or Southeast Asian islands, you don’t need runway requirements less than 1000m. Even YTZ (by far the airport that bugs most people out w/ runway requirements) and EYW will handle the -500 just fine as will almost all Philippine gateways (speaking from experience on that one). And range, of course, is very subjective, but most ATR routes fit the -500 as well.