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Originally Posted by amcnd
Think you need to listen to the conference call yesterday ... My interpretation is they want to "right size" the XJT operation. With them not wanting to integrate seniority lists, to me that meens just a all CRJ700/900 fleet.. Will UA extend the E145 contract?? Maybe the Air Willy deal just shed some light on it.. thats a glut of 50 seaters coming into UA. Will XJT be able to pull off a switch to AA with the 145's. Doesn't look like it do to UA owning the planes. And the fact that the 100 already lost have not gone there. Just to other UA operations... so the real question is. In 2018 is there room for XJT's 100 E145's in UA's operation....
Not that I necessarily disagree, my position has always been that the ERJs will be gone at the end of the current CPA expiration day. But here are some transcripts of the conference call:
"Demand for our remaining 50-seat aircraft remained very strong and we are working with each of our major partners to meet their ongoing 50-seat needs."
"Well so, I think Michael you're right on point in many respects there. I think that we have seen specifically with American strategic move that they are certainly very hungry for lift. You obviously see what happened with Air Wisconsin but I think there's a general term today Michael that a lot of our partners if not all are most of them are very interested in 50-seat lift."
"So we don’t fundamentally believe that the Air Wisconsin announcement had any impact on our existing 50-seat flying with United, but you're right in that there certainly is some opportunities for 50-seat lift with American and we're always in some good strong dynamic conversations relative to those specifically."
"We fundamentally believe that we're going to be providing more visibility with the professionals at ExpressJet as we continue to evolve some of the legacy contracts within their business model and our feedback is that’s the number one thing that they're looking forward to and it's our number one priority to make sure that we stabilize that entity right now."
I also didn't hear them say anything about not wanting to merge seniority lists. Also, UAL doesn't actually own all of the 145s, just eight of them. They are leased on a 15 or 15.5 year term. Once the leases expire, the lessee is financially responsible and UAL no longer has any tail risk. But even for the ones UAL owns or are still responsible for, nothing stops UAL from subleasing them to anyone like they did with RAH for their other operations. It's better to bring some money in from those aircraft rather than paying to have them sit in the desert.