Originally Posted by jamesholzhauer

https://www.airliners.net/forum/view...2069&start=200 go down to post 246. According to this (and some other places I've read but don't have the sources handy), UAL didn't buy these planes to deny them from SWA, but are actually getting them from SWA (GECAS owns them but leased them to SWA, and as part of SWAs -700 early retirement while moving to the MAX they made a deal to retire them and pass them back to GECAS and on to UAL). Also, supposedly this deal isn't new and was in the works a while ago (at least on the SWA end), and just so happens to work out well for UAL...not so much for SWA (if it is accurate).

Supposedly this is when the decision was made to park some of those 700s.
https://leehamnews.com/2018/04/30/so...0-retirements/ https://simpleflying.com/southwest-737-retirement/

Related, today SWA says they are delaying some -700 early retirements, so they got that going for them. https://centreforaviation.com/news/s...ircraft-924415