Let’s see what Kirby actually said (link please).

There are a couple of ways to read it based on what exactly he said:
anything from we are stopping all 50 seat regional flying Sept 30 to we are not going to use regional gauging to rebuild routes, maintain frequency, and goose loads artificially on the way back up (unlike what they did in 2001).

Also may just be yet another marker in the ongoing scope fight with mainline pilots. If he could have had all the large RJs he wanted without giving anything up he already would have shrunk 50 seaters...

...isn’t it funny that in a crisis the ‘solutions’ are always the things that were wanted by leadership but unacceptable before the crisis. Never let one go to waste to achieve your goals!!

seek and ye shall find:

https://flyingtogether.ual.com/news/...3/30/town-hall

Edit: time stamp for the relevant question is 43:00 if you don’t want to watch the entire thing.

Not a UAL or UAX employee. Can someone post the highlights?

A guy asks about the fact Delta plans to retire 767 and 757s and Kirby says those would be the first to go with UAL, also. Next would be narrow body airbuses assuming the 737 Max starts becoming a thing again. He says that best case scenario is they get to use the Maxes for growth after all this, keep the airbuses, and maybe even buy more planes for cheap when the competition fails. He then adds that “on the regional side... the fifty seaters would mostly be gone at the end of this, in any of these scenarios” Oscar says there are probably a lot of smiles regarding this news. I am not one of them.

Other highlights from the video besides what I just described was Kirby saying flexibility is key, because no one can guess how long demand will be this low or how long it will take to bounce back. Obviously everyone is safe through September while the company tries to assess what their next move will need to be. Furloughs are a last resort, everyone working reduced hours makes for flexibility to bring them back to full time once the demand is there, and take advantage in the market.

idk, someone else can add what they thought was interesting. I’m not a UAL employee so I don’t much care about the details.

Per usual, I expect Appleton to be silent re: the 50 seat comment...meanwhile, we’ll all just sit here and slowly ponder the end of our collective little group. Last one out turn off the lights...

Joking about 2-3 entire airlines going out of business. I really, really liked Oscar as a CEO and the cultural change he was making at United but this was... wow....

I wouldn’t get concerned about Kirby’s comment just yet. He’s trying to get a scope cave from UALPA before he has to start ripping seats out of 76 seat Embraer RJs, and parking others. If he doesn’t get scope cave, I don’t see how he can park 50 seaters and follow the DOT mandate for service. It just doesn’t work. This also could be his plan to escape from the DOT mandate for service — saying he doesn’t have the frames to do it anymore after the recovery starts — pleads for relief from that.

If he can’t get scope relief prior to recovery, he may be setting himself up to blame lack of profitability and tanking of yields/loads on mainline pilots by removing the most cost effective no load airframes from the equation (50 seaters) to then be able to go before a judge in a BK scenario and say:

’Look I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to fly an empty Airbus/737 with 15 people on it paying mainline rates. All I need is to make my pilots let me right size the gauge with a 70-76 seat airplane at B scale rates. Please rip up the scope clause.’

yeah I don’t know if it was supposed to be a joke, or talking about passengers who hate tiny planes? I don’t know what that comment was supposed to mean at all, but I don’t get why the smallest regional planes wouldn’t excel in a world where hardly anyone is flying, and usually not long distances. I think it’s like that other guy said on here, just Kirby trying to make his move to get rid of them.

Yep
no need to take the stimulus money if UA is using this pandemic as a reason to dump a lot of 50 seaters and restructure the flying.We won’t have any flying to do regardless.
All of the uax ho’s got fat ,old and ugly, can’t make money anymore so now the pimp UA dosent need you and dumps you 😂