I'd be curious as well. No one ever likes to lose face. Whenever someone claims to "know" something they'll never admit they're wrong--ever. Sometimes it is an individual posting on social media or message boards. Sometimes it is the company. So who is ultimately right or wrong? Usually we don't know until years later.

Take the 350. Reading these message boards, it is underperforming, the company wishes they'd never bought it, etc. And yet, every time that question is asked of "top men" it is wonderful, everything we ever hoped, will be our flagship for decades, etc. Who is right?

 

It was in print by someone who should be somewhat in the know. His name was Ed Bastion. He said current dispatch reliability was 95% on the aircraft and it needs to get up to better than 99%.

The A220-100, Delta’s newest plane, has been having some operational problems since starting flights in February, Bastian said. The airline completes more than 95% of A220 flights, he said, a measure of how often its avoids cancellations. But Delta, which prides itself on reliability, wants to get that number to 99%.

 

Who could have ever guessed that? Its the biggest technological thing from an entire country since they invented crappy beer and was only lightly tested by a couple micro carriers who never pressed it as hard as we will in our optimized optimizer optimization mission.

It may work out and I hope it does but going hard into that platform just for cheap CAPEX and on paper CASM is a very understated risk we will carry for a while. It is nowhere near proven yet.

 

LOL as if.

MX delays of any length are almost all 10 minutes at a time, no hotel, sit on the plane ready to go just in case, until 117 concerns start to become inevitable.

 

That's a lot different than "very poor" and "needs to improve fast" and "frustrated."

Of course we want it to be better, but he didn't say anything nearly as dire as your proclamation.

 

95% dispatch reliability is awful. Expensive engines at a fraction of TBO is really bad too.

 

Your right, I would not call 95% dispatch reliability very poor for a airliner. I would call it horrendous! I also only pulled one quote I read about the airframe. If all our fleets ran at 95% we would collapse overnight as a airline. Keep in mind this is a airframe that has been in service 3 years. Teething problems should be behind it.

 

The engines are a completely new design, the airframe is a first generation and the electronics/avionics haven't been used by the manufacturer before. I won't make excuses for it, but as hard as we run our airplanes it doesn't surprise me. I think the engine reliability would benefit from a longer warm up and cool down time. Heat changes and localized heat are what destroys engines. That doesn't square with single engine taxi and minimum start time.

 

If we only operated the A220, we could still be close to AA's performance.

Remember the 787 battery fires? The first delivery was in 2011 and the groundings didn't start until 2013 and those aircraft ended up flat out grounded for months.

Sure it has been "in service" for 3 years, but not widespread service. As notEnuf touched on, we are probably the first operator to really operate this aircraft like a normal airline does. Sure the reliability needs to improve, but you seem to think this aircraft was in widespread service and high rate production for those three years, which is wasn't.

It's not that it doesn't need to improve, but a single statement from Ed that he wants to see better numbers doesn't mean we are unhappy with the airframe.

As far as the engines go, the A320NEOs are having similar issues and even one of the 787 engine options has such a low TBO and production rate combined that at one point half of the airframes with that engine option were grounded just for lack of engines and that problem is still ongoing. And that is an aircraft that has been in service for 8 years!

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-r...-idUSKBN1W50MP

https://www.airlineratings.com/news/...-problems-787/

https://www.godsavethepoints.com/rol...10-dreamliner/

In short, this feels more like a double standard. While the A220 needs improvement to meet our goals, it is nowhere near the level of being a lemon at this point in time.

 

Oh yeah I totally see you’re point...dispatch rates, engine warm up, A320NEOs (!!!), it’s all very relevant and superbly presented.

Now if someone could please inform us if there was an indoc class today and post the drop when they get a chance that would be lovely!

...and a big congrats to the new hires!

...if there are new hires.