Originally Posted by
89Pistons
We're bumping this month, next month, and the month after that. And we don't have any new hire classes scheduled for the rest of the year yet. I hope you're right but there is absolutely nothing that signals growth. There are signals for backwards movement or stagnation.
So I'll ask you this...if you think it's going to be a good year for growth where in the world do you see us growing? The moves they're making now are for the summer of 2018 staffing levels.
"Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall"
"All ya got to do is call"
Seriously though . . . as has already been pointed out in numerous locations, the staffing adjustments are necessary because the company was all jeffed up fleet wise. Simply using the assets we have more efficiently is a slam dunk improvement for the company.
Take for example the Guam fleet. It turns out we had 2 737s sitting for hours doing nothing everyday. By returning the planes to domestic use, it was the equivalent of getting a whole other plane's worth of productivity at no capital cost. Alone that may not seem like much,, but taken as a whole with all the other fleet optimization moves it adds up.
Optimization takes time. The company must bump first to see where the excess pilots desire to go before they can hope to predict their BES openings.
Originally Posted by
757Driver
Meanwhile back at the farm in Atlanta. Delta continues to clean our clock while we slowly retool. Cancelling those extremely cheap 737-700's was a gigantic blunder that we probably won't recover from. Look for a very weak search for used aircraft followed by an ah shucks guys, no cheap airframes out there so we need scope relief.
Kirbys game plan in a nutshell.
In all my years studying the financials of the airline industry I have never seen a management team with such a clear and conservative plan. If you go to United.com and download the investor presentations of the last year you will find a precise set of metrics with which you can judge the progress of this management team. In addition they admit to being behind DAL, but they are assiduously working to chip away at that lead, and so far, they are meeting all their targets:
Scott Kirby, president of United Airlines, said, "United is delivering on the commitments we made at investor day last fall. We saw positive trends in the revenue environment in the quarter and are optimistic about the year ahead. Looking forward, we expect second-quarter consolidated PRASM to be up 1.0 to 3.0 percent. This would mark the fifth straight quarter of sequential improvement and the first quarter of positive unit revenue growth in two years."
Preliminary Operational Results: Revenue Passenger Miles (Q1 2017 vs 2016)
Mainline 8,408,616 ------------ 7,749,995 ----- 8.5%
Lastly, as has been pointed out in industry publications prices for planes are falling and there is considerable discussion of how to replace the 757/767 model. Deals we made when prices were high may not be the best option today and a decision to go with Boeing's newly proposed MoM plane would require years of waiting and uncertainty. The risks associated with those uncertainties need to be carefully weighted against other more certain options.
I will bet you a bushel of apples that by fall of this year we see 2 major events: 1) a fleet plan that includes 1-2% growth in airframes for 2018 2) one or two large bids with training in September thru December timeframe.
In any case, we'll know in a few months whether I'm a PollyAnna and/or Kirby is actually wearing a birthday suit
