He literally said as much in yesterday’s earnings town hall. It was pretty unambiguous, until he seemed to realize what he said and backtracked only slightly.

It is extremely unlikely that Ed will ever see a 787 as CEO.

 

Not anymore, after he laid awake at night because he didn’t take enough from the pilots he discovered Ambien!

 

Replacing 37 x 763's with higher paying airframes is still a win for us. That, along with the manning that goes with our WB fleets, it should be a pretty good net positive that could push us closer/over the number of WB A's that UAL has, even with large WB fleet. It will be interesting to see how much WB domestic flying will be done in the future. I'd be down for a WB category that had a healthy split between the two.

 

FWIW, while it’s certainly a fun parlor game to predict airframe retirement plans, I think it’s a little premature to assume airframes like the 767-400’s will retire at 30. Even the 767-300’s might stick around for a bit as a flex fleet. But I guess we have to start somewhere. The D check schedule will probably weight heavily in the C-suite decision on that.

5 years is an eternity, and it’s really hard to predict what will happen, even without world events potentially impacting plans. Burning they do keep the 767-400’s around for 35 years, that alone would be a huge impact on WB advancement, much less if they kept the 763’s for longer (less likely).

 

Any thoughts to this concept considering UAL is also expanding and growing their WB fleet. I think 20 787s this year alone.

 

Well 5 years should give them time to fine tune the build process. Heard from a UAL friend that the last 787 they received was so bad they may have to send it back.

 

This is better than I initially thought, and it aligns with a clear fleet refresh plan. It’s not like there were many options—either stay with the A350s and accept stagnation, or add another manufacturer. Thirty years is a long time in the widebody world, so those timelines make sense.

Someone else posted a comparison of 30-year-old frames versus the aircraft we’re taking on, and it all lines up—likely about ten additional airframes by the early 2030s. That also tracks with Delta’s historical growth in these markets. We’re not opening a bunch of new theaters with only ten extra jets, but I’m genuinely thrilled to be replacing ERs with 787s.

Given how heavy they are for their size, the 787s make the most sense on the East Coast, with DTW, ATL and NYC driving Europe. If I end up retiring on the 787 with layovers in FRA and time in Mainz, I honestly can’t think of a better way to go out.

Congrats to all!

 

I like how your flight ops thinks. Boeing says the 787-10 will do x. You guys buy them, fuel burns and operational performance matches the sell = -9s converted to -10s. Its in wild contrast to moves like killing your only ultra long haul WB fleet to force early retirements just before hiring 5000 pilots. Stupid, but I appreciated the seniority bump!

 

That's a fair point on retirments being flexible, and not necessarily by 30 years. I realize we currently have a hand full of jets beyond 30yrs (18 A320s, 5 757, 8 767s). I know those 18 320s will be retired over 18 months, as well as those 5 757s, and I believe 3 or 2 76Ls retirements were pushed due to 321neo layflat delays to cover the NYC-LAX/SFO transcons capacity.
To be fair, we've also taken some jets out early (77L, newest 767s to Amazon, some 717s, 737-700s, etc). We could do that with some of the 764s/330ceos when the fleets are very small and winding down, to streamline categories and unique fleet types. If that happened, I'd expect the 764 or 332 to go domestic or full wind-down before the 333ceo just due to scale and elimination of a smaller category.

I know it's a lot of conjecture, but I wanted to insert some data into the mix, just like you do with AE analysis and times to upgrade.. where absent data, inaccurate perceptions become dominant narratives. Whenever we get these orders, it's easy for a lot of pilots to only see growth, especially when the new order isn't replacing guage for gauge. There's intangibles like utilization rates vs older jets, and taking some jets to 30 years vs 35. I see the latter being more of a thing if orders are delayed (when hasn't that been a thing?) or we realize we are behind in capacity.

IMO the 787 order isn't a bold intention to grow a variety of new international routes or net WB block hours. It's a 764-332-333 replacement, openly stated as an east coast to Europe/SA fleet. It'll probably be delayed, because it has thus far for everyone. With 60 orders, wouldn't be suprised for the 60th to arrive by 2040.
Hopefully this is just the conservative baseline, with more aggressive delivery timeline, top-ups or used aircraft acquisitions in the coming years.

 

Don’t forget the gently used pre-owned opportunities we always seem to find.