Originally Posted by
FlyingKat
The 550 is about showing the UAL pilots that management has another option besides a 100 seater at mainline. Its a ploy, nothing more. If they get scope relief the 550s will be gone. However if UAL is stuck with present scope you will see a whole lot of them, and some of the present 50 seaters will be replaced by 550s. You could easily get 200 550s as 700s are replaced by 170s similiar to what Northwest/Delta did with the DC-9-30s as other airlines park them for newer aircraft.
There isn't 200 700 aircraft currently flying for United....
-25 GoJet (with orders for 25 more)
-19 SkyWest
-20 Mesa
That's sub 100 jets.... The others come from the boneyard and Air Wisconsin flies them in replacement for their aging 200 fleet? That's 50 more.. Still sub 150 jets. Where do all these planes and pilots to fly them come from?!?
Your argument doesn't hold water. United pilots do not care about the 550..
United has other stronger cards to play with the heavy 767/787/777 planes. That's where their leverage comes from.