Originally Posted by gloopy

Originally I think 40 or so A320's were slated to retire in the coming years. The 737-900ER order wasn't just about 757's. Now all the sudden no one is talking about the 320's other than etherial rumors of life extension programs that may or may not materialize. In any case, the entire 737 order book could easily be pure replacement and even net shrinkage if we retire even a few older 88's. Yeah I know, glass and all that right? But until every last one of them gets it, they could easily retire a dozen or three that never make it to the magic glass factory to begin with.

The 717 does appear to be more growth than shrinkage at the mainline, even though the total network continues to shrink. How long can we keep shrinking, and what is our plan as we become more expensive as we shrink and the fantasy growth airlines (foreign and domestic) keep barfing countless hundreds of capacity aircraft into the system, while the only trick in our bag is to shrink to squeeze yields and quarter over quarter/YoY margins?