Originally Posted by
AAL24
there is a ton of retirements at AA. You will move up the list faster. The one gotcha that few mention is AAL has slowly but surely transformed itself into a primarily narrowbody airline. Our percentage of WB jets is much lower than UAL. With the arrival of the 321Xlr and more 787s the 777 fleet will be at risk of being parked. I doubt our balance sheet puts us in position to order significantly more large acft. If you want to be a 320/737 CA go to AA. If you want to be a wide body CA or FO go to UAL.
In terms of narrowbody to widebody ratios, every major airline is “primarily narrowbody”. Emirates and other Middle Eastern/Asian airlines that are state subsidized (yes, the US airlines are subsidized too) are the exception, not the rule. UAL certainly has more narrowbodies than widebodies. How many of UAL’s 777s are still grounded due to the engine failure over Denver? How many Group 4 equivalent airframes does UAL have if you subtract the grounded, ancient 777 non-ERs? Probably still more than AA, but much closer. UAL is going to retire their massive fleet of 772s, both ER and non, about the same time AA will… will they replace them 1:1 with the 777X or 787 variants?
In short… go where you can drive to work.