Originally Posted by
Andy
This is a temporary pause. That's it.
The only way vacancy bids stop is if passenger demand falls off. And there's no sign of that happening. But you can find plenty of pilots who will cry wolf about 'the music stopping' over and over again. Eventually they are right.
Look at the passenger numbers:
https://www.tsa.gov/travel/passenger-volumes
It's pretty much up 10% from 2023. United has to grow in order to keep up with demand. If United stops growing, all airline ticket prices (not just United) will increase considerably in order to suppress demand growth.
On the same note, we need Boeing to keep building those POS guppies in order to keep up with demand.
The FAA can try to stop United growth and Boeing from building aircraft, but the public blowback will be untenable.
Your assumption that demand is unlimited and infinite is pretty gullible. Financing airplanes when pax demand is high is easy. When you have too many assets not so much. Bastian is a CEO who really gets this, preaches optimistic but measured, strategic growth. Not growth for the sake of growth, highly leveraging the assets before acquiring new ones. Unlike drag queen CEO, which thankfully is being somewhat impeded by Boeing (he’ll thank them later).