Originally Posted by
gettinbumped
No, when UAL ordered the 900ER they combined it with 100 Max's. The option they had at the time was present day 321's with winglets (ala jetBlue) and future A321NEO's. And I'm quite sure we could have gotten the present 321's VERY cheaply.... same as we did for the 900ER's. There is NO WAY Airbus wasn't pitching the idea of the 321NEOLR to UAL when they decided on the order. Could have replaced the 757's at exactly the same pace as we are right now, and converted some or all of our 321NEO's to 321NEOLR's and had a TRUE 757 replacement. It's not a secret that the management team that is now making the decisions leans Boeing.
Just for clarification CAL took delivery of the first 900ER in 2008. The MAX and the NEO were not an option back in 2008. Lcal took delivery of 12 900's and 56 900ER's before the Lual 900ER's started arriving. The Lual order occurred in 2012 and just continued on with the 900ER deliveries and included the MAX order.