1) Does that 41 include the 11 B757s that have already been taken out of service since July of last year? If not, then thats 52 B757s lost and 50 B739s replacing them. Also there's a rumor we're headed to 60ish B757s, that'd be a total loss of around 90 B757s since the 739 was ordered. So that makes the 739 almost entirely a 757 replacement, but the 739 was advertised as a 763 and 320 replacement as well. Are we still going to park from of the 16 domestic B763s or 320s?
2) Given the numbers of around 80 aircraft in the particular categories you mentioned I see a BH ratio of 1.80 (or 1.7981).
If that is true, why did we put the required ratio in the PWA at 1.56 if this growth was known last year?
3) We have about 324 retirements between now and the end of 2015. If we are going to have net growth of 80 airframes between now and the end of 2015 that'd require about 1444 pilots (14/acft). We're hiring 300, so we need 1,144 in 2015 alone to cover aircraft already being delivered in 2015. So we'd behind the entire year in staffing by a considerable amount even with 95 pilots a month.
What the he[Rachel Maddow Show]ll are they thinking with pilot hiring? Why only announce 300 if you need nearly 5 times that in short order? Or is it we don't need 14 pilots per plane anymore? How many RES Captains and FOs are exceeding ALV now and is it already effecting pilot staffing needs?
4) 80 airframes between now and the end of 2015, or about 89 since July of last year, equals a seating inventory growth of around 11%. Put those seats in motion and take DCI to 450 jets and net the DCI 50-seaters for 76-seaters ASM swap and you've got a domestic growth of around 6-7% over a 2 year period. Or what 3%/yr give or take.
It's a lot of growth or about 3X what we've been doing for years now and even this year...
Richard Anderson 24JUL13: We will continue to manage our capacity conservatively as we've done over the past several years in order to prioritize profit margins and improving cash flows. The first half of 2013, our capacity was down overall, and we will be up slightly about 2% in the back half of 2013; for full year capacity, up less than 1%, below GDP growth.
So.... honest question, what's the growth for? We're going to grow our domestic fleet by 14%, grow ASMs by 6%, increase well beyond the required BH ratio... but where are these jets going? And why are we breaking our capacity constraint model out of the blue even after this week claiming we're staying the course?
And with all the growth why are we only going to hire 300 in 2014 leaving us way behind for 2015?
It reminds me of talking to these APDs in the 88 program, guy 1 is freaking out because there will be so many pilots coming through there won't be enough sims even with the E period sims for newhires and the wheels are going to come off. APD guy #2 says we were told we don't really need to hire right now.