Thought Kirby was from AA not CAL?

This is not the first time management has decided to reduce spending on the 400. Every time they do, the reliability goes way down. Put more money back into it, then it becomes reliable again. Probably won't be brought back this time.

British Airways, and our Star Alliance partner, Lufthansa don't seem to have problems with the same age and type planes....

Really not surprising to me. What is surprising is that they waited as long as they did. As soon as they announced the 14 777-300s that was my first question. If they didn't retire the 747 then the 777-300s would have been all new capacity, plus as the article said the 777-300 has 20% less fuel costs per seat mile. That is a HUGE difference and makes so it seems to me to make good sense to get rid of the 747s and replace them with 777-300s. Sounds like a pending announcement soon, and I bet it will include a couple more 777-300s! (Or at least I hope so )

As to the 350, I'll take the other side of that bet. Posters on the other forum say TK already has a pilot or two in training for the 350. That alone isn't proof positive since we all know how well Network Planning keeps TK informed of pending changes but it does offer some hope that the 350 hasn't yet been scrapped from future plans.

Yes Kirby was from AA. APA was glad to be rid of him.

Jeff was the one who decided to close ORD, then reopen it, and most likely were the ones to stop the maintenance spending and was most likely the influence behind the A350 orders. In fact, I think I remember, those were a LUAL order right before the merger closed, along with the announced 787 orders, and the parking of the 767's. How's that working?

Nice rant but what's your point?

UAL is replacing expensive unreliable ASMs with cheaper reliable ASMs.

No doubt that if the company wanted to throw unlimited money at the fleet, they could keep it going. But, corporate boards are fickle like that, they want to know how management will spent (and then want them to spend as little as possible).

Every renew/replace fleet modernization cycle follows the same logic, UALs 747 fleet isn't any different.

Parking 20 wide bodies in one year and cancelling 65 rj replacements? Sounds like shrinking to increase profitability...

The latest union update states that we won the hostile-takeover war. I would argue that we did not.

The non compliant bunks still have to be sorted out. I think, like Embraer, Airbus is planning on the union caving and getting a waiver to get shiny new planes. I don't think there is much chance of that.

My bet is that UAL will never see the A350. Instead look for A350 orders to to be rebooked to the A321 NEO as a 757 replacement.

My point is that using an unreliable stat/rant is misleading since management decided to stop spending money on the fleet. Old or not, no plane survives that.

When employees say that it's a horrible plane and needs to go they have no idea what it takes to keep something flying. Bottom line, you get what you pay for. I'm not saying there aren't better alternatives, just be realistic about the product management decides to put out there.

Ill give you the 65 737s, but parking 20 wide bodies come on. Were taking delivery of 19 this year, most likely more. I'm sorry your 747 is going away but the sky is far from falling.