gloopy

I am fully aware of what's happening in EU land. And its going to get worse. A lot worse. But we have been pulling down faster than AF and they have added super premium all cargo lift into our hub completely bypassing that part of the ESKM's in the already extremely liberal (for us) 3 year blank check balance window.

Some who have been keeping a close eye on this have surmised, and I have a hard time disagreeing with them on this, that once the company takes full advantage of the 3 year burden we have shouldered, it will be suddenly renegotiated/reset, you know, to acknowledge the new reality/economy/etc. Good for AF though. Srsly, good for them.

Also there is a lot of ponzi scheme lift coming to Europe from the fantasy land "Heros of Farnsborough" crack pipe growth model dual subsidized Gulf and Asian airlines. A lot of capacity. And you can bet they are betting we will blink first, especially if it means preserving quarterly margins.

Oh but the EU is so bad off. Liesure cliff. Well guess who isn't scared and is planting their flag on this one:

Press Release | Qatar Airways

And this is the tip of the iceberg on this one. Will we yield more capacity to them, and yield more of what's left to our european partners? Especially with another one about to join the "team"?

And there is a 100% chance a current LCC will go nuclear and get widebodies. Its a mater of time and I don't think that much time. A year to three, max. It doesn't matter if it won't work. There are a lot of business models out there that require endless growth. This will be where at least one, likely more, cornered rats will go to mine growth, counting on legacy airlines to yield to them to preserve company wide margins at any and all costs.

OK, cool. What about the 321NEO? What about replacing some 88's with 73-9's or 321's? Or using ER's on more and more domestic as we transition our pulldown of point to point trans Atlantic service to higher gauge frequency to EU superhubs?

I don't think we will be replacing any 90's for a while anyway. 88's though could start to be parked at anytime. Even if they got the glass mods. Which they now aren't getting it seems.

Yes. They will take over *some* markets previously served by large RJ's. Don't forget though that a lot of the RJ pulldown is coming from culling redundant RJ superhubs. The markets will be served, but by significantly lower frequency and lower over all net ASM's. We won't see hourly service to every small town from ATL, DTW, CVG, MEM, MSP and other hubs anymore. The 717 upgauging will only account for some of he RJ's parked. And some of the 717's will replace current 9 flying as well.

Some 717 lift will also replace currently larger gauge lift too though as we continue to dicipline our capacitai. 3 777's to replace 5 ER's...5 ER's to replace 9 320's...4 90's/737-900's to replace 5 88's and 5 88's replaced by 5 or 6 717's for net capacity shrinkage.

Throw in even a little bit of work rule "productivity" changes and another code share/JV or three and I just am not seeing how we will be a 12,500 pilot force in 5-10 years. Even 10,000 seems to be pushing it.

Not entirely sure what you mean by that.

Hey, I hope so. 9 months isn't that far off though. We're 1000 down post merger and still shrinking and the company is saying most likely no hiring for at least another year. And that's assuming things don't get worse economically. They will get worse (not Wiemar Republic or any doomsday hyperbole like that, but worse nonetheless) and competition will increase furiously over what it is today.

We are well on the trajectory for a 9000-10,000 pilot force, down over 2500 from the merger.