I see your emotional attachment to a dying fleet, but in your own words, walk us through a fleet renew/replace cycle.

Management could have better managed the drawdown, but that doesn't change that it's time to drag Old Yeller behind the shed and put her down.


As for unreliable stats, are you really going to insist that we post fuel burn and segment completions?

Ok, sunshine. Ill leave the cynicism to our usual suspects, I'm just stating what I see. The 2017 new hire projections, for example, have gone from 800 to 700 to 450. If you don't see any negative changes since the arrival of Kirby, et al., then I'd like to put my app in at your airline.

Agreed.. Whats next the 767-300's? My guess yes.

400 newhires just cover retirements no growth.

What are the negative changes? Because you are right I don't see them.

The parking of the 747 a year earlier than planned? We will have every new wide body to replace them 1:1 on property by the end of this year. Fail to see the negative.

The 777 will have more modern and drastically better customer amenities. the new polaris offerings and entertainment for everybody. this will increase our customer base. The 777 will have better reliability which will lead to less customers getting upset on our most lucrative routes out of SFO. The 777 burns less fuel on the same mission leading to higher profit for our checks. Again I fail to see the negative.

The 737, in my opinion, was the wrong aircraft for the mission it was stated for, replacing 50 seaters. it puts a 32 seat gap between our 76 seaters and our 118 seat 700s. That gap is to big and was destine to fail. We need a 100 seater and I believe that we will see the reason for this deferment some point this year. I think cancelling the 737 was smart so again I fail to see the negative.

We are not growing this year. We will see how much they increase utilization but we are not growing. Is that a bad thing?

We are not shrinking either.......That is a good thing.

Umm Jeffery and his minions are the dopes that drained any chance of reliability at the combined company esp LH operation. If you are like the majority of CAL pilots you knew pre merg that Jeff was bad news. But if you have allowed yourself to believe that CAL was still Gordo koolaid land in 2009 I can't help ya.

I tend to agree. I wasn't too comfortable with the long term implications of competing against Delta's C-series airplanes using late 1990s era 737s.

Many of our smaller city markets have considerable amounts of business traffic. Business travelers demand frequency. If you were a business traveler, would you choose the airline that can get you in and out of town 3 times a day or 5 times a day? Too big or inefficient of an airplane will mean less frequency in these smaller markets.

I'm too lazy to dig up the reference, but I remember reading an analyst report within the last couple of months discussing Boeing's problem with filling the 777 production line before they start producing the next generation 777. There would have to be quite a few layoffs at Boeing if they couldn't sell some more current generation 777s before the next generation started to be built. The upshot of the article was that the major airlines were licking their chops, just waiting to be offered brand new (current generation) 777s for fire sale prices.

I'm cautiously optimistic that there will be a new order announcement with rapid delivery times during UAL's earnings call next week. However, my concern with the 777-300 is that it won't fit in our LAX gates.


This isn't the exact article I read but it's of similar vein: Boeing Is Cutting Down on One of Its Biggest Cash Cows | Fortune.com

I couldn't agree more

I think all the hand wringing is much to do about nothing. Without question the prior management team had audacious growth plans, and the new team has greatly reduced those plans, but the counter point to that is the discipline that the new team seems to be bringing to the future outlook.

The last investor update carefully outlined a strategy to grow profits substantially and grow the fleet at a steady 1%. Part of the profit strategy is upgauging routes and thereby reducing frequency on occasion, but overall it represents continued growth, slow, yes, but growth none the less. We are only in the first half of the first inning of this new game, but already they have pre-announced that revenues are beating expectations.

I know I can be a Polly Anna at times, but truthfully I see several years of continuing improvement and movement in our careers. It's time to enjoy the good of the moment and stop worrying about the future.

Of course, I always recommend living under your means as a guarantee of future happiness. I recently read a research report that indicated happiness was correlated to how much money one has in their after-tax bank account. So the moral of the story is, if you find yourself perpetually unhappy then you need to save more and spend less

It's not just UAL MEC... the A350 bunk doesn't comply with FAR117.

Fixed it for you.