List vs. Listen. I figured it out.
I added at the end of my post it was my opinion. There are all kinds here, the debbie downers, the pragmatists, and the cheerleaders.
The 180 was a direct quote from the fleet plan posted on the company website. If you are planning your future at any airline you can go with the current fleet plan, or an unknown future order based on a given percentage growth based on capacity not total fleet size.
What is said on the calls is not written in stone, and they are careful to state as much.
We know there will be an order. When, where, how many, when will they arrive? I'll wait for the announcement. Until then I'll go with the current fleet plan.
MCO was supposed to be 300 pilots by April, it has 180? Stuff happens.
Where does the 4-5 year upgrade posted before come from? Any numbers to back that up?
Some key words from the call. utilization and gates
When the company increases the utilization rate for crew and aircraft, what does that do for increased fleet size?
When the company can't get the gates it needs for growth, what does that do to orders?
Take note that those two words were mentioned multiple times. How much Q & A was there on new orders?
Another increase to crew and aircraft utilization? Disaster recovery software and rescheduling. The company has both now and will learn to use it effectively.
Opportunity. How did we get to 180 airplanes? Opportunity certainly played a part. Getting the Chinese 320's, the two Mexican 319's, the two WOW 320's, were not planned. The WOW birds won't join the fleet until late fall. At some point the number of currently leased 319's to purchase runs out. This working at the edges, it adds up certainly, but it's not 200 new airplanes worth. It's a bunch of clapped out planes that need increasing maintenance. Which was a subject of the call.
Deferred delivers. Any information on pushing at least one delivery to 2020? Any correlation to the fire at the plant in Germany?
I'm all for growth, and I expect it.