757Driver

Meanwhile back at the farm in Atlanta. Delta continues to clean our clock while we slowly retool. Cancelling those extremely cheap 737-700's was a gigantic blunder that we probably won't recover from. Look for a very weak search for used aircraft followed by an ah shucks guys, no cheap airframes out there so we need scope relief.

Kirbys game plan in a nutshell.

Sunvox

"Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall"
"All ya got to do is call"

Seriously though . . . as has already been pointed out in numerous locations, the staffing adjustments are necessary because the company was all jeffed up fleet wise. Simply using the assets we have more efficiently is a slam dunk improvement for the company.

Take for example the Guam fleet. It turns out we had 2 737s sitting for hours doing nothing everyday. By returning the planes to domestic use, it was the equivalent of getting a whole other plane's worth of productivity at no capital cost. Alone that may not seem like much,, but taken as a whole with all the other fleet optimization moves it adds up.

Optimization takes time. The company must bump first to see where the excess pilots desire to go before they can hope to predict their BES openings.



In all my years studying the financials of the airline industry I have never seen a management team with such a clear and conservative plan. If you go to United.com and download the investor presentations of the last year you will find a precise set of metrics with which you can judge the progress of this management team. In addition they admit to being behind DAL, but they are assiduously working to chip away at that lead, and so far, they are meeting all their targets:

Lastly, as has been pointed out in industry publications prices for planes are falling and there is considerable discussion of how to replace the 757/767 model. Deals we made when prices were high may not be the best option today and a decision to go with Boeing's newly proposed MoM plane would require years of waiting and uncertainty. The risks associated with those uncertainties need to be carefully weighted against other more certain options.

I will bet you a bushel of apples that by fall of this year we see 2 major events: 1) a fleet plan that includes 1-2% growth in airframes for 2018 2) one or two large bids with training in September thru December timeframe.

In any case, we'll know in a few months whether I'm a PollyAnna and/or Kirby is actually wearing a birthday suit

El10

We are growing at 3% for the year, compared to Delta who is only growing at 1%. Now a lot of that is from higher density seats, but mainline block hours are up YoY and block hours drive manpower requirements.

89Pistons

I'm looking at the block hours for mainline for May 2016 and May 2017 in the SSC reports right now. The block hours for mainline were higher in May of 2016. It will be lower for June 2017 too as we're not flying to AKL this summer and have discontinued some of the seasonal Europe flying that we did last year.

89Pistons

Going back over some of your post in the past and you have been off more than you've been on with your predictions. As to the highlighted above....you're right except for those "two large bids" will be displacement bids. If you think the current displacement bid is large you haven't seen nothing yet. The next two will be much larger in size and will include BES's other than SFO -400 and IAH 787.

The optimization if done correctly is good business. But you optimism as it relates to upward movement and pilot numbers is based on a fairy tale.

Regularguy

We would all hope that UAL would optimize the use of its airplane assets, but the reality is it can't happen, especially when there is more than one type involved.

The routing of airplanes is not as easy as you all might think, it all depends on the goals of marketing and operations (two different things BTW). Marketing wants to have the right "gauge" (sized) airplane in a market so that it can charge as much as possible for the ticket, while operations matches crews, maintenance, and many other sundry issues as it routes airplanes.

The bottom line is the newest management is back to the old "capacity constraint" methods and there will be no real growth in airframes at mainline UAL until after 2018. The main reason for considering "used" airplanes is the pipeline is shorter, but their life is also. You might also notice how long it has taken to get those "Chinese" Airbuses into service. When would an Emirates -300 be put into service if UAL was to take delivery this month?

If UAL were to place an order for a "new" airplane in current production today it will take approximately one year to actually take delivery of that airplane.

So how should you all bid/bump? The seat, commute, reserve, line holder, or whatever you are willing to live with for the next few years. My personal opinion is if you can hold that Captain bid, but like that international F/O schedule, it might be a consideration how long it will take to get that bid in the future should you bypass it today.

ReadyRsv

Might I suggest everyone remember that besides the -400 fleet retirement (for which we have 773 deliveries) ALL of these displacements are matched with equivalent seats opening in other bases. I'd be worried if the 787 IAH was going away and the aircraft were being parked. Moving these aircraft to the Washington, DCA area seems like a good business model.

89Pistons

Equivalent seats? Prove it. Many of those seats have already been filled prior to the displacement? I think your view might change when you see the next two displacements and see where they displace to.

Sunvox

Hmmm, I'm curious as to whether you are right . . .

Prediction 1 -
My number in the SLI was 6551.

Prediction 1- check


I also predicted ...

Prediction 2 -


2006 CAL guys ended next to '99 UAL FRL.


Prediction 2 - check



Prediction 3 -

Actual was 13% for 2015

Prediction 3 - check


Prediction 4 -


I was wrong here. That's one for you.

Prediction 4 - wrong



Prediction 5 -

16.5/3/3 = 23% 3 yr raise
17.5/4/4 = 27% 3 yr raise


DAL contract for the first 3 years - 18/3/3 = 25% 3 yr raise

DAL also accepted changes to on sick call letters and LCA holdback.

Looks like I wasn't too far off.

Prediction 5 - check



Prediction 6 - (This from the "other" forum from January 2015)

I sold last fall at $12






So far 83% . . . I dunno . . . not tooooo bad . . .

89Pistons

Sunvox, didn't you claim on this site and the Forum last year that we were buying JetBlue?