How were they rewarded? I thought the deal was done well before the first max went down? Did they go back and renegotiate somehow?

Boeing also told Alaska in April that the software fix was complete and would be certified that week, that was straight from Brad’s mouth. How did that turn out?

Rewarded for their loyalty? I guess that is what the Boeing salesmen said as they shook hands on the deal. They were really thinking, thank God I got rid of a few of these lemons.
As you stated the Airbus was likely done here from the start, and as another poster said the 2nd MAX crash sealed it. It will happen faster now because we can get the worst plane in the Boeing fleet at fire sale prices and on an accelerated delivery schedule as forward thinking airlines around the world cancel orders. Just out of curiosity, why are we all better for it? Without beating the long dead Boeing vs Airbus horse yet again, what makes it better for us, as pilots to have only one fleet? I see it as an obvious cost saver for the company to be single fleet, but I don't see how it helps the pilot group to reduce options.

How many is “large?”

The only thing I can think of is potential for more trading flexibility - the more pilots on the airplane, the more likely it is to find someone to trade trips with, split trips, modify pairings, etc. So in that sense it would make sense to have 3000 pilots on one airplane instead of 1000 pilots on the Bus and 2000 on the Boeing. At least, that would be the case at an airline with 21st century scheduling rules instead of the contract we currently have that allows scheduling to deny absolutely everything.

Hopefully someone can come along and tell me why this last bit of optimism I have about working here in the future is misguided.

That is a valid point. The flip side is that we end up with fewer pilots on the list because fewer are in training for upgrade and equipment swaps at any one time. I seem to remember hearing that something like 10% of delta pilots are in the school house at any one time becuase all of their different fleet types generate a ton of training as everyone bids around. That 10% number is pulled from a very deep place in my memory, and may be way off, but it illustrates a point. As QOL goes, trading flexibilty probably outweighs this....if we had any.

I just hope it’s a 1-for-1 fleet replacement. The last thing we need is 73 Buses to be replaced by an order of 50 MAX10s because it’s more seats overall and represents growth to air group.

Agreed, at previous places of work the aircraft with the most routes had increased flexibility etc.

I’m sure you know the answer to this, however I appreciate your optimism.

God this airline continues to disgust me. Excited to fly the death machine. Highly doubt this will be a 1 for 1 trade. Seeing as this joke of an airline is getting destroyed in the trans con market (ps virgin never struggled hmmm?), they are probably itching to reduce the fleet count.

But hey congrats coworkers, we won our 12th jd power yesterday. Never mind that we actually came in third, by a wide margin, but due to technicalities of jd powers judging criteria JetBlue and southwest aren’t our competitors??????! They are only our competitors in real life and the ones beating us across the country and in California, soon to be Hawaii too.

Congrats guys and gals, we are the Number 1 ranked 3rd place airline!!!’nnn

F this place.