Originally Posted by Sink r8

OK, I'm listening to the webcast. Here are the cuts I'm hearing Ed talk about:

1) The remaining DC-9's, all -50's (about 35), to be retired in 12-28 months,
2) The remaining Saab 340's (26), retired this year,
3) 60 CRJ 50-seaters to be retired in 12-18 months.

Ed doesn't talk about MD-90's right away. He says (technically correct) that we have "no order book". I think he's saying no orders with the manufacturers. Capacity for the full year is being looked at, probably will end up being at the low end of the previously announced range: up 1%. Q1 will be up 3%, vs. previously announced up 5%.

It's really hard to tell how our overall capacity will be affected by listening to the webcast, which I guess is the point.

You get some idea on replacaments/additions (other than through the RFP, which will be addressed much later in the year) from the Q&A: replacements will be the ERJ-170's just announced (8), and a "handful" of 70-76 seat airplanes, for a total of 10-20, and (20) MD-90's from the used market.

Based on the webcast, I guess that takes capacity down by 15 mainline airframes, down 40 RJ's (60 leave, 20 come in), and down 26 Saabs in the next 12-18-months.

There is no timeframe given for aircraft coming in, or if 20 MD's is all there is, and no mention of some airframes we've been told were coming out of the desert previously. This is also short of the 49 MD-90's previously mentioned (Bastian mentions 20, and we already have 19, so he's only mentioning 39).

Depending on how positive you want to be, and depending on how many of these mystical MD-90's you want to count, and the 2 ER's and several 757's coming out of the desert, it all varies between a slight positve, to as much as minus fifteen airframes. That's all I could figure out.