Fleet Growth: Significant fleet growth or a larger seniority list with the current fleet would justify earlier upgrade times. Maybe this is the aspect I'm missing. It's my understanding UPS has 8 aircraft on order? Are these just to replace the MD? The "better not bigger" strategy seems to make me think UPS will prefer to continue offering 150% on open time pick up to avoid fleet growth.
The MD replacement has not been not been announced yet. The CEO has characterized that as a cost of maintaining the system in comments to investors. The 8 on order are all growth that started under the previous CEO. The current CEO has directly told the union she would like to have 14 additional tails (above current orders) on property by the end of 2022/early 2023. So growth is already baked in, but obviously those extra 14 are speculative at this point. Finally, I would anticipate the company continuing to prefer running lean going forward for all the obvious reasons. Assuming those 8 firm orders, plus at least some of the additional 14 show up, you would be looking at upgrading NLT your timeframe at Delta. The airline (especially internationally) has been making a lot of money for the company since Covid hit.