Originally Posted by
sailingfun
On the JV subject the company is out of compliance looking back 36 months however they were in compliance since last winter and are forecast to remain in compliance so it's certainly not getting worse it's getting better.
Don't know what the great ER purge is. There are none planned to be parked in the next 3 years.
4 whales is an awful lot of lift though. Even with the mod lines coming to an end, they were temporary mods for cabin configs and the fleet boock hour plans had to have been originally shrunk to "fund" the mod lines in the first place. Its highly disturbing that they were parked in the same bid that was going to have openings for them. We're told that speed wins, but so many other things go at a snails pace, including future aircraft orders.
In any case, I'm more concerned with the so called widebody RFP. Specifically how many of them will truly be growth, particularly from a pilot block hour standpoint. 330's and above make a horrible replacement for ER's from a pilot jobs standpoint.
No one has a straight answer for the 787 situation. Every one else is getting them but us, we have orders for them in 2020 but an RFP for possibly our own orders, and everything seems to be delayed anyway. Perhaps indecision really is the key to air power. Meanwhile the endless growth mode airlines march on, certain they will find quarter with DL who they believe is terrifed of a yield war. We'll see.
As for the great ER purge, I'm referring to all those dots on the map that the ER used to do, but now have been "re-allocated" to our code share partners. We split the seats (by split I mean they get a majority but what's a few percent amond constructively engaged friends) to AMS and CDG, and they take it from there to all those dots…many much further east…and get those block hours all to themselves.
Meanwhile we're hearing that we're thinking about deeper ties with Korean, which by all accounts is extremely arrogant in thinking they should be the dominant carrier in the alliance even though we are the only reason they exist in modern form.
Even if the 747 hours were funded by mod line returns, how is it possible that is the reason for it beind instantly becoming the reason, in the dark of night, while the bid to add positions was still live? Did they simply not know it until then? Even if it somehow results in growth, would there have been more growth if they stayed?