Originally Posted by
dremaldent
Just want to create this thread to talk about a few things we know so far. Kirby did imply that 50-seaters may be going away, but we shouldn't be super worried about that right now. Here's my take on everything going on right now.
1. We have no idea what he actually meant when he said that, nor the timeframe. He could be implying that he wants scope relief from UALPA, which he likely won't get, which makes this entire fear of him taking our planes away kind of moot.
2. Switching exclusively to a 70 seat market won't work without scope relief. There are simply too many routes to cover.
3. AWAC has passed an LOA that makes us (Hopefully) furlough proof until the end of May, on the basis of reducing our guarantee of course.. They have also passed an LOU which pay protects us in case we get COVID-19. That doesn't sound like a dying company to me. If they take money from the Federal government, this is extended to the end of September.
4. Even if Kirby gets his scope relief, there will still be a (Slightly smaller) regional market that needs to be covered. Sure it will be taken up by larger companies, but having CRJs rather than ERJs will give us a small edge in retraining since I'm expecting United will prefer CRJs over ERJs. It's very likely AWAC will still retain a contract.
5. The economy will bounce back after this. UND has posted a video made by economists in their university about how they expect airlines to fully recover by the end of the year. Hiring will slow down until summer next year, but will not stop. UND is 96% accurate when it comes to industry prediction.
6. Contrary to the fear I've been seeing from many, this will not end the airline industry (Yes, I've actually seen people say that no one will want to do air travel ever again after this). People will forget about this rather quickly, and return to their old habits as soon as the risk of contracting COVID-19 is reduced.
I don’t think that anyone knows how this is going to play out. This is Kirby’s quote about the 50 seat jets:
“my guess is that the 50 seaters will be mostly gone by the end of this. Under almost any of these scenarios 50 seat flying will be a thing of the past”.
Do they think that in a market where demand is reduced that many of the small markets that have been served by the 50 seat jets will no longer be worth it? Do they want to take advantage of this depressed market to eliminate a fleet type that generates negative customer feedback? Will they decide to add 100 seat jets to the mix and unlock more 175’s for the regionals? They have wanted to greatly reduce the 50 seat fleet in the past, but couldn’t due to scope. With reduced demand and a several year recovery anticipated, it sounds like they have decided that now is the time. Depending on what this recovery looks like, there could be fleet retirements at both UAL and UAX.