It's not a 20% reduction. A 20% reduction would be 2.8M block hours. I put it at a 13% reduction in block hours but ASMs only drop 6%.
But as the numbers show,
best case pro TA scenario of pure 717 growth + 7 MD90s - 17 DC-9s and you've got a total fleet with DCI 450/325 that is 6% smaller than it is today.
Best case pro TA scenario, we shrink in total by 133,000+ block hours or 4%. They're telling us that they will drop ASMs.
Now take that significant 4% drop and say the company decides to park MD88s via the 717/CR9 tag team. Because at some point, there will be no MD88s in this fleet. And in doing so they eat maybe another 0.6% more YOY drop in ASMs over the best case pro TA scenario 4% drop.
That's where you get a 400,000 block hour drop or a 1.89% drop per year. We're already doing 1% drop last year, why not a little more in the name of refleeting?
And that drop is even less YOY when you consider the time it will take for the 739s to all be here. If you didn't notice a 1% drop from 2010 to 2011 I doubt you'd notice that one, except that there would 325 outsourced jumbo RJs helping out the cause.
And fwiw, I gave the best case and tried to develop the worst case and let people see the estimated difference. No harm in that right? You can focus on the growth only side if you want, I don't trust it.
Now given what we've seen since 2008 when we had a 767 mainline fleet drop to 720, a domestic fleet drop by 6%, and a reduction in pilots on the seniority list, etc, do you think they'd grow or shrink?
Pure mainline growth and a cost increase?
or
Some sort of capacity neutral refleet that saves money on pilot costs?