Originally Posted by
e6bpilot
Have to agree here. The 700s are in dire need of replacement. They will be 1 for 1 for quite a while and then once the 700s are gone, they will probably right size gauge by retiring/selling 800s. The company can’t wait to get that 700 albatross from around their necks. Those planes are all extremely high cycle and, even though they have done heavy checks, you can easily tell that they are just riding them into the dirt and not doing a lot in the way of upkeep. I swear I am calling mx on about every 5th leg in one.
SWA's annual 10K just came out. Always good info in there. Average age of the 700's now is 20 yrs. Average age of the 8's is three. As of probably today(10K goes to DEC 31st 2025), there are more 8's than 700's. Mx costs for 2025 were down almost 10% for the year. Fuel costs were down almost 10% also. Part of that is price but consumption was also down as well. On a per ASM basis, mx was down 10.5% and fuel and oil was down 11%. For SWA, adding new airplanes is a no brainer as long as utilization and capital to buy them is justified. SWA is hard on it's assets when it comes to airplanes. Thats a good thing. P2P still drives those efficiencies. 74% of SWA total trips last year were non stop with 871 nonstop city pairs. Still the average stage length of 780 miles. Lots of cycles on those birds. Just remember, SWA would rather drive efficiency through squeezing more flights with current fleet count and getting more ASM's and block hours(pilot hiring) than buying new airplanes. Turn times were reduced last year to create more airplanes without adding fleet count. It creates a floor for margin expansion. The other side of the equation will be what is yet to come with the new initiatives. Thats asset mangement 101 in business school. Another analyst raised his estimates for SWA to $5.00 vs $4.00 a share from the company for 2026. Estimates now for the first quarter are .52 a share vs .45 a share a month ago. Report card's will be out in April.