Originally Posted by
Flytolive
It just says no Polaris not retirement and they already are in the BF two-class configuration. Obviously, the 24 remaining three-class 777s are the Polaris priority.
United also has another 13 787-10 coming 10 of which will be flying before summer and 13 more 787-9s. If those 11 'reported' 787-10s are real United would be headed for 12/38/25 (8/9/10s) for 75 787s.
If you go to the United Fleet Upgrade Status thread on airliners (which has commonality with the United Mainline Fleet webpage and the Flyertalk thread via the same folks maintaining both) multiple posters claim the 7 767’s are to be retired.
Will they? Eventually of course, but sooner or later? Time will tell.
We currently have 132 777/787 (92 777 and 40 787 for year end 2018). Minus the 18 777-300 that the leaves a 777 fleet of 74 to be replaced eventually. We have 45 A350 on order. If the 787 fleet grows to 75 as folks are predicting, that still leaves 12 more aircraft beyond the 350 order needed to match our current widebody fleet. Even more if we grow.
So I don’t think a decision has been made re the 350 as those airframes are certainly needed and the 350 provides capabilities that neither the -10 (in terms of range) or the -9 (in terms of seats) can match. It slots nicely between the -9/-10 in terms of seats and as a 777-200 replacement with some seat growth. (Delta has 306 seats in theirs but UAL traditionally isn’t as densely configured so say 290-300 seats for ours. Our 777-200’s will seat 276 once fully reconfigured and the 787-9 seats 252, the 787-10 is 318)
Interesting times ahead and at least it currently is about getting airframes instead of shrinking.