Finding time to get hungover? They give it to me! 60+ hour weekend layover...it can get ugly FAST! :D

Fleet Plan
 

Excellent original post!

Of course, this is crystall ball stuff..."it's the economy stupid."...may be appropriate.

How will our expansion in Europe go? How will the internal China express market hold up? India? Lots of variables...

Will the fleet plan holdup? I think we will buy more 777s than we have on the books. Also, we might buy some used 767s to supplement our MD11s for intl lift or allow our MD10s to be moved to the orient. Just guessing, but this is the internet anyway.

There is a lot to be seen at FedEx as time passes, that is for sure. But, if you look at some of the other projection numbers, you see that we will need about 90 new wide body captains and 40 new Wider Body Captains (B777) over the next 2 1/2 years. That is above and beyond the 166 wide body captains excessed out of the DC10 for a total of around 300 new Wide Body and Wider Body Captains that need to be trained. It is hard to know to where the DC10 Captains will excess, or if any of them will retire/move to the back seat of the Boeing. I also wonder when we will meet critical mass with second officers. I am sure we aren't too far from the time when Wide Body Captains won't have the seniority to hold the back of the Boeing after they turn 60.

Narrow Body Captains will remain pretty much constant, but they will need to train about 50 B757 Captains a year for the next 7 years or so.

We will also need about 115 new wide body F/O's and 43 Wider Body F/O's. This is above and beyond the 138 that will be excessed out of the DC-10. Again, that means a total of about 300 Wide Body and Wider Body F/O's that need to be trained by May 2010.

These numbers do not take into account age 60 or retirements. That is just the projections based on fleet planning. There are some rumors we will sit 5 Wide Bodies after peak as well as accelerate the DC10 conversions to "sit" additional aircraft, but it won't change the numbers that significantly. If age 60 doesn't change, for a while at least, that will mean more movement based on the number of retirements which I think was around 170 for 2008.

Bottom line, I think we will still see pretty healthy seat bids/excess bids over the next couple of years, but nothing like the mother of all bids as proposed earlier this year. Progression may not be as fast as we have seen, but I think it will still happen. The fleet plan could change significantly which would affect these numbers, but I don't think that will happen for two reasons.

The first is that we will need the B757 narrow body lift to replace the B727's we are losing. Even if domestic freight is flat, we still need to meet the flat demand. The 757 is replacing the 727 1 for 1, so there is no increase in the narrow body fleet.

The second is that we need the long range wide body lift for China and beyond. Therefore, I don't think we will stop the conversions we are planning or stop the acquisitions of the Buses which we have already purchased for the expected increase in international lift. IMHO. Hope I am right.

Repeated so you don't have to scroll back to the beginning of the thread.

Trap,
Since the CBA allows ANY plowback to the s/o position, only thing a guy needs is one body junior to him on the panel in order to train into the seat. Since there are new guys on both panels, I don't see this happening for a while. At least not until the company excesses from the s/o seats. Maybe then this scenario works.

Are guys over 60 having these granted by the company?

If so, how many age 60 guys are currently on LOAs?

I know an SO who was running a side business about 6-9 months ago, which started having the potential to become a very large business. He asked his ACP if he could get a LOA and was told they weren't being granted ---- but perhaps they weren't being granted to "grow a side business".

I wonder what personal reasons are being used to justify the over age 60 LOAs?

Trap,

Great analysis, thank you.

That's the question. Weren't there WB Capts on the previous S/O training letter, but now aren't? Maybe they retired? maybe LOA? maybe ...?

Ok, feeling better...LOVE these weekend layvoers.

Great analysis...so, what is the concensus? Will there be another bid to (1) re-fill FDAs, (2) man the 777, and/or (3) add more 757 bodies?

What do the fingers on the pules say?

Also, what are the chances that a secondary award may slide to the right or may not even get to the schoolhouse?

FedEx chief sees U.S. slowdown, not steep decline