If you order a new Airbus today, you are probably looking at the first deliveries in 2029 or even 2030. Airbus has a 6,000 order BACKLOG on the A320/321! A new order placed today goes at the end of the line.

We had some really big aircraft delivery numbers for the next few years, some years were 30+ deliveries. They smoothed out the numbers so that we take about 22-24 (I think) a year, to help reduce CAPEX while we rebuild the profitability of the company.

The deferrals I saw today took some of our deliveries from 2024-2027 and moved them to 2028. Have you seen anything showing some of them being moved to 2029-2030? It's possible, but I haven't seen it. As far as I know, even with the deferrals, our orders stop around 2028. And with us planning to retire our oldest A320s, even if that retirement has been extended a bit, once they are gone our current order book results in very little net growth from where we are. Some, but not a lot. And that growth would end permanently in or near 2028. So JB MUST place an order now, if they want to continue taking airplanes and growing post 2028. If they wait another year or two, the delivery dates simply get pushed out even further, 2031, 2032+. They CAN'T wait. And, the price just keeps going up. After the Alaska door blew off, now UAL is considering ditching the MAX-10 order for A321NEOs, driving up demand, driving up prices, and pushing out the delivery availability window even further.

If the undisclosed order isn't JB, we are in real trouble. The plan was Spirit, and Spirits order book. That plan doesn't look like it's gonna work, so they had to have an alternative plan to get jets. It was pretty clear before the ruling came out that JB knew it was blocked. Robin's retirement, Joanna saying in her email "Robin's pursuit of the merger" etc. In fact, that one line was the only thing she said about Spirit in her long "I'm the new CEO" email. They had known since the end of the trial it wasn't going their way. Trial ended Dec 5th. December 21-22 this undisclosed order is placed with Airbus. There are only so many companies that fit that fleet mix (A321s+A220-300s), only so many that need this timing, and only so many reasons to keep the order secret. Most airlines are proud to put their name on these high profile orders, unless they have a good reason not to immediately.

On the investor call today, an analyst asked Ursula how we were able to get Airbus to agree to these deferrals without paying a penalty (there are other reasons right now that could work, but her response was interesting), and she quickly snapped back saying "I don't want to talk more about the deferrals, it was mutually beneficial" with Airbus.

Only a select number of people know who this order is really for, we won't know until the press release, but I'm still fairly certain it's ours. Which still leaves a 100% possibility of being wrong. So we wait...

 

Mutually Beneficial to both parties is subjective. As in we are helping them with their backlog.

 

Absolutely, that's why I said there are other explanations. But... She didn't say that, and that seems like a pretty easy softball to just say. She was very abrupt about cutting off that line of discussion.

In other words, if it was that simple, she probably would have just said that.

 

Ok, so that leads to a question... and before every troglodyte comes out of the woodwork to b!tch about how they've been lied to for ten years...yeah, I get it. That was then, this is now.

We are flying to Europe, there's only so many slots/gates to go around. With the aforementioned NB order in mind, at what point does it make sense to upgauge the size of the plane? How far are their other production lines backed up compared to 321s?

 

Are you asking why no widebodies on the order? Or what are you saying/asking?

But I believe the widebody order backlog is much smaller, especially for the A330/A330NEO. But smaller may or may not mean shorter, depending on production rates. But I think the A330/A330NEO is in fact much shorter.

 

I wouldn't expect it to be in the same order because I don't think they are ready for it right now. But you've war gamed this out several years, so I'm asking when you think they would make such an order and when those planes might hit the street based on all of the above guestimations. In other words, we can't fly NBs across the pond forever...

 

I'm ignorant on this subject, but can JB legally keep that information (secret order) from investors?

 

Yes, I believe they can for a period of time for competitive or other reasons. I've looked it up before and I think they can file to keep it undisclosed for a period of time, and then jump through another hoop for even longer. But it's been a while.

 

I'm not sure what the answers are on this one. I think the company had/has different widebody plans depending on different scenarios. But I couldn't do your question any justice unfortunately.

 

The answer was interesting to me too. Not word for word but she also said something along the lines of "you don't expect me to give away my negotiation style/tactics now...[chuckled]" then she said what you said and pointed to investor day in May for more on our multi-year plans. I'm assuming by May they will know more about where the Merger stands and if they need to greenlight plan B.