3 of the 4 additional 777-300s, by next summer's flying (from the company comms):
Plus one 787 this August and 4 more in Dec-Feb of this winter. The 17 777-300s (by next summer) plus the additional 5 787 airframes will cover all the flying the 747 was doing plus some extra.

Not saying I like the 747 going away, but we will still be a net positive on WB flying for pilot pay purposes, just not as much as we could have been if we had kept the whales flying.

I don't understand how that is possible. If less airplanes fly the same block hours, isn't it irrelevant since staffing is dependent on block? One could even argue its a financial benefit to the pilots in terms of profit sharing to have the minimum # of planes necessary and not a single one extra.

Guess I am not sure which part you are questioning as not possible?

You are correct that we should care about block hours not airframes.

As far as the effect on Profit Sharing goes, one would have to know the total CASM and RASM for each aircraft to determine the benefit of buying new airplanes versus keeping old ones. I will let the Management group that deals with aircraft purchases continue to do that, as they have not ever asked for my input in the past and don't anticipate them asking in the future!

My point of having "extra" flying if we kept the whales, was in my own personal dream world where we not only keep the whales, but also buy the new aircraft and grow the operation substantially. That would result in a much larger increase in block hours than we will get with using the new aircraft as (mostly) replacements for the 747. In that dream world, we fly the 747 until the original planned replacement, the A350, or it's replacement order comes along.

Unfortunately, that ship has sailed, so now we will get a small increase in widebody flying and then just have to hope that whatever becomes of the 350 order (how far into the future is anybody's guess) nets us some growth airplanes as we go forward.

In the meantime, the 787-10s should start showing up around the time of the last 777-300, so hopefully we get enough of those over the 18-19 winter to see some WB growth again in the summer of 19!

Anyone care to speculate what the 74 reduction and 78/777 shifting means for the future of SFO 756? Does it remain predominantly domestic and Hawaii 75 stuff?

You'll get nothing but EWR overnights and like it, now row!

So in other words it will mirror lax 757

Yes, block hours. # of airframes, sort of. When management says they will replace with the 777-300er's, they order the minimum necessary. If anything goes wrong, unplanned MX, let alone an engine change, the schedule will fall apart. The way I see it, even with 18, it's close to bare minimum to operate just what the 747 is flying now, plus a few that should have been larger metal all along.

Financial benefit? Efficient yes, but we've been down this road before with inadequate resources. As an employee, I wouldn't be arguing managements side. They will hose us every time.

They are planning on operating to 8 cities in November with the 777-300.

Not sure how that will work when it takes 2 airplanes minimum for each city. When they get to 18 airframes that will probably work.

Originally EWR was supposed to get most of the -300's, but looks like SFO has most of the flying. EWR will only get TLV and NRT.

It is their job to operate the airline with the minimum. We couldn't compete otherwise.

The 777's will be vastly more reliable than the 400's. That is one of the reasons to get rid of the 400. 4 engine airplanes just have too many parts to break. They tried for years to get the reliability up. They finally, wisely, gave up.

I love the airplane - it is an icon of aviation history. But, it is history.
Bring on the 300ER's. And my profit sharing check.

I am not aware of any changes announced for 756 flying out of San Francisco so I'm not sure why you would correlate the 747 being retired with changes in the 756 fleet?


The 747 is currently flying 6 city pairs. All of those flights could be covered by any 777, 200 or 300. There would be a seat loss, but not a wholesale loss of coverage. The 300 has, if I remember correctly, only 8 seats less than the 747 and carries 30 pallets which is exactly the same as a 747. In fact, it was already happening on occasion that a 777 would replace a 747 on specific segments when one or more 747s went down for a mechanical. I believe there will be a significant increase in reliability overall, not a decrease. Plus I disagree with the sentiment that this management team is providing "inadequate resources". I believe they are finally making efficient use of our fleet which will hopefully translate to an improving bottom line for UCH.



According to the the fleet head honcho, there was never a plan to fly the -300 out of EWR. The rumor, as best I could tell, started with the EWR FAs because they got wind of the one route that was slated for a -300 that being the TLV. From there it became all the -300s. I asked while I was out at training and was told the fleet had no idea where the -300s were being deployed. I realize TK is not at the front of information, but I like to believe if the plan was to send all the -300s to EWR, that would be something they would have heard before the EWR line pilots.

What are the 8 city pairs? I believe the 787 is getting some of the 747 routes, and currently the 747 is only flying 6 routes: LHR, FRA, ICN, PEK, PVG, TPE. Also for flights over 10 hours the number I was told is 3 airframes per 10+ hour route. Hence 18 747s for 6 city pairs.



+1000