Originally Posted by
CX500T
I'll believe the growth when the hulls are on property, in Delta colors flown by Delta pilots.
My thought is a lot of the "growth" WB airplanes on firm order are replacements for 767-400, 767-300ER and older 330s.
Fully expect them still to show up but the next hiccup the 767 is gone. They are "growth" if all goes well, but are realistically replacement airframes.
Last hiccup we canned the 777 and 88.
Fully expect 76 and 71 next round.
Except that the “firm orders” are not replacements as we haven’t retired any WBs since Covid but have had a steady stream of deliveries.
The 88s and 90s already had sunset dates, they were just accelerated by Covid. The 777 was an orphan fleet of 18. Even then, I think if it were just a recession vs a global pandemic, they’d still be here.
If you’re saying that growth will be cancelled out when we retire jets during the next downturn…that’s like saying water is wet. Of course if there’s a big downturn we will downsize in turn. That doesn’t cancel out the growth we are currently seeing.
What many people forget is that we have more WBs on property now than we did in Jan 2020. (And a lot more paying at the top rate). To me, that’s growth. Depends on your perspective I guess.
I will say, until the jet has a widget on the tail and is being flown by our pilots, I won’t believe they are ours.