Originally Posted by RemoveB4flght

I think the bigger problem is not knowing exactly how many aircraft will be out of service at any given time. Talking to a gaggle of maintenance guys the other night there are a number of factors that make it hard to pinpoint when exactly each plane will come down and how long for each. It's also not necessarily a first in, first out operation either. So some planes it might just be down long enough for an engine swap and back in service, while others sit a while.

From a staffing standpoint this makes it difficult to project how low they can take crew levels. Underutilization and inability to crew flights during a network disruption is the risk you take running too lean, and our meltdown elasticity hasn't been stellar.