American looks to be making more than Delta in 2014. Around $4.7 to $5 billion. While ALPA loves to look down at APA, they actually have a great union and a great pilot group.

I think they will do very well with much greater leverage.

All Parker has to do is look at UAL and see his future if he ****es off the pilots.

Like you I hope they hit it out of the park..

The pendulum as swung and it is our turn.

So you take something that sucks and merge it with something that sucks?


I guess maybe a 787-200? A 767-200 replacement?

I see your point. I agree they shut it down too soon. That said, it is a breath of fresh air literally and figuratively to hear Boeing is mulling a new clean sheet domestic NB. I thought we were doomed to see only their 737 offering with "SWA inspired cockpit" for the rest of our lives.

Yeah, having that 2L door available to speed up the emplaning/deplaning process for 180+ passengers really sucks.:rolleyes:

I'll betcha that the difference between turn times on the 73-9 and the 757 is 15 minutes at least.

Not yet it isn't

Thanks to Southwestern Airlines for not raising the bar! :rolleyes:

A 757 replacement? Not going to happen. Why? Both Boeing and Airbus have a comfortably thick order book for aircraft that can do 98 percent of the routes, spare parts galore, and trained pilots, mechanics, simulators and inventories. Developing an entirely new aircraft is incredibly expensive. Assuming they are talking about essentially a narrowbody 787 with GTF engines, the program would never break even, because the 737 and A320 have been improved well beyond what they were originally conceived to be.

Which is of course, sad. Because the 757 does what it does very, very well. And it does that because it incorporated lessons learned, and was engineered to a very high standard by people who saw what happened to B17's, and B52's when things went badly. Extra metal, extra power, extra wheels, extra brakes, extra system redundancy all add up to an aircraft which has no equal.

But the calculus used by airlines today are purely cold numbers. Being able to stop on a slippery runway, climb over weather, board pax in separate classes, takeoff and land on high, hot and short runways, and provide a comfortable and safe environment for the crew is not part of that calculus. You know who still cares about that stuff? People who fly corporate or private. Look at the G650 or the Citation X. Mach .93 at 45,000 feet, synthetic vision, XM weather, lightning detection, heads up display, satcom, datalink. Nothing but state of the art. The best we can hope for is a third manufacturer who decides to create the next generation of commercial airliner. They'd have to be crazy though. Or maybe heavily state supported.

All good points.

There is a good "behind the business" piece on the DLnet about aircraft acquisitions at Delta. It's the reason we're making so much money, but it's also pretty enlightening as to the future of our fleet. The good news is we're going to keep making money, because their system is a solid one. The bad news is that if you like flying big airplanes, you should go to United. RA stated in the Wings Club presentation that the 747 replacement would ideally have 100 fewer seats. So that's the top end of our future fleet...

Question for FlightLine WW or EasySwap users: I used to be able to download reserve manning (still can using WW) and then it would display horizontally as a calendar color coded green and red along the top...

I can't figure out how I did it, or with which program now?? I can't find a display for reserve manning along the top for either WidgetWorks or EasySwap. I'm thinking it was in EasySwap that it was displayed, letting you see swap trips underneath that had manning to work with. But I can't find it now.

Any help would be appreciated, thx!
RK