Originally Posted by
SureJetz
You said it yourself. Tired airframes. These planes are tired. If united wants to make them into 50-seaters with expensive maintenance costs and questionable reliability (on routes with loyal customers) then why should United pilots care?
It's a 3-4 year stop gap, nothing more.
The first 550 is one of the oldest airframes out there. You can do anything if you have enough money. Northwest pulled 30 plus year old DC 9 30s and 40s out of the desert in the mid to late 90s and NWA/Delta used them until 2014. You can use these airframes a lot longer if you have the financial incentive.