Originally Posted by
sailingfun
With the current fleet right around 720-725 lets assume your right and we shrink modestly to 700 airframes.
We have about 200 new airframes coming. 100 737's, 88 717's and a handful of MD90's still in mod.
Your statement would require we park 225 airframes to get to 700. That would mean all the 757's and a most of the A320's would have to be parked in the next 3 to 4 years.
Would you like to put some serious money on this bet??
We will have a excellent idea if your right in a month or so. In the March bid if the company intends to keep the mainline size flat or shrink will have a net loss to neutral in Captains positions. I think you will be find your wrong when the bid comes out. There will be a substantial net gain in Captains positions.
A couple of things, you're talking airframes growth, they're talking capacity right? And you’re saying 3-4 years, looks like some of these delivery schedules go out six years to 2018, right? And you’re saying the next AE will be indicative of the next six years while right now we’ll be adding new 717 categories while the DC9 category that the 717s will replace will still be open for the interim, right?
I don't know if I see things as rosy as you might.
Start with the notion we'd have to replace 225 airplanes for me to be right. Well, let's first look at the fleet:
So they said the 739 was a 1;1 replacement of 757s, 763s and 320s and that it'd be done over the next six years (if I had the delivery schedule right). I find that plausible. So that's 100 of the 225 additions.
Now look at the 88s, they'll be almost as old at the end of this decade as some of the DC95s are now. Will they stick around or will the 717 + MD90 replace them?
Anyways, grab a bag, throw the 739, 717 and MD90 into it. Take out a portion of the 757s, all of the 763s, all of the 9s and think about those MD88s, hell, blame it on Nextgen and Bucking Bar let's get grid of them all. Take into account DCI@450 where yes the fleet dropped 25% but the capacity only dropped 16% and maybe even less with more efficient and faster jets capable of better utilization.
You could get a flat to a 1.5% yoy decrease in capacity with that, near flat mainline growth, and still maintain the 1.56 ratio the entire way.
Seems plausible to me, continues our current shrinking trajectory. But let's just say it's too much, weren't there rumors of picking up some more 717s? Do a 20-30 more of those things and you have a flat capacity.
But you do have more mainline airframes. 30-40 in that scenario. Which if we multiply that by the 10.1 pilot ratio we're running on the 88 we'd end up with 300-400 more pilots? If we did 80 airplanes like the filing said and get to 797 total (i.e. 4% larger than we were 4 years ago) it's 800 more pilots?
Minus the more productive pilot efficiencies and we'd need to be hiring 3-7 pilots a month over the next six years. But we do have a contract in the middle of that and given our current trends in productivity, paying for our own jets and increasing jumbo RJs, who knows.
I'll be happy if in 2018 we still require 11,800 pilots.