Originally Posted by
jayray2
People are always making this claim and I have to wonder if it is fact or just rumors all based on message board gossip. If the -200s are so inefficient to run why is NW running them? Does Delta have some kind of secret information that NW does not know about and is going to immediately ground the 200s? If they ground them what happens to the planes (if you are going to reduce flying you will ground planes right)? I know this is a message board and we come here to speculate but your speculation about 50 seat flying being reduced has the same odds of happening right now as my opinion that Mesaba will not be a company next year at this time.
Sounds like you are pretty new around here. It's good that you are asking questions. I'll try to answer some of them.
The rumors came from a couple news reports about a month ago. There were statements from some airline execs basically saying that fuel prices have reached a point that makes 50seater RJ's no longer profitable even a full capacity.
Unless fuel goes down (not likely) or ticket prices go up (fingers crossed) the 50 seat RJ's
will start to go away. Who knows what will happen to them. I've heard there's a cargo conversion, others will be parked in the desert next to hundreds of other airframes that are also no longer profitable to fly. Maybe they'll all turn into beer cans?
If you think that things in this industry can't change that fast or that much, you better look up the history of the company that you fly for. Only a couple of years ago we went from growing like a weed to Ch.11 "woe is me" in less than a month.
I'm actually pretty optimistic about the future for XJ. I think we are in a good position to survive merger mania. But we are in survival mode now. It has already been announced that there will be a reduction of flying, and so by those standards if we end up getting all 36 900's, 17 200's and keep our saabs we will have come out ahead.
Anything can happen.